Panel advances bill targeting those who hire undocumented

By David Montero

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published 3 hours ago
Updated 12 minutes ago Updated Feb 14, 2011 11:22PM


The first immigration bill of the legislative session to tackle employer sanctions on hiring undocumented workers passed out of committee 9-4 Monday, despite concerns by the bill’s author that it was stripped of a key provision.

Rep. Chris Herrod’s HB253 was touted by the Provo Republican as a companion piece of legislation to the enforcement-only immigration bill sponsored by Rep. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem. Herrod’s proposal would target employers that hired undocumented workers, suspending their business licenses for three days on a first offense and for a year on a second violation.

Business interests have derided the legislation as an attempt to shift the responsibility and cost of immigration enforcement onto the private sector, while supporters have heralded it as filling in a long-missing piece of the immigration reform solution.

But one of the bill’s tougher ideas was removed by the House Business and Labor Committee — a provision that would require employers with five or more employees to participate in the federal E-Verify program under threat of state license suspension. Current law requires businesses with 15 or more to participate, though there is no penalty for noncompliance.

The committee chose to keep the threshold at 15 employees — a development that made Herrod unhappy.

“I think that will be a debate on the floor,â€