Thread: Poll: AZ voters support illegal-hire regulations

Poll: AZ voters support illegal-hire regulations
by Charlsy Panzino
published on Tuesday, September 4, 2007
http://www.statepress.com/issues/2007/09/04/news/701561

Sixty-nine percent of Arizona voters support federal regulations that would require business owners to verify the legal status of employees, according to a new Cronkite-Eight Poll.

The poll was released Aug. 28 and used 738 registered voters for its findings.

The poll was conducted Aug. 23 to 26 with a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percent.

Twenty-one percent of those polled opposed the new hiring regulations and 10 percent were undecided.

The rules, which will go into effect this month, will require employers to show they verified the identities of their employees. If they are unable to do so, employers must fire the workers within 90 days. The rules also increase the penalties for companies found to hire illegal immigrants to $10,000.

ASU students had mixed feelings about the regulations.

"I absolutely agree with these new rules," said Anthony Scimeca, a business freshman. "I think the best way to start cracking down on illegal immigration is to stop the business owners from hiring them. The only thing I would change is to make it even stricter."

However, cracking down on employee hiring could affect the economy, said Laurie Joseph, a secondary education sophomore.

"I suppose there will be a lot of jobs left open when this process starts to take place," Joseph said. "And what does that mean for us? That means that a lot of businesses will be closing, there will be a lot of people out of jobs and the economy will suffer greatly."

The poll also offered a number of questions related to the U.S. presidential race.

Of those polled, 13 percent felt that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., matched their beliefs the most, with Arizona's Republican Sen. John McCain coming in second at 7 percent.

But when asked whom they would vote for if the election ended up being a race between McCain and Clinton, 48 percent chose McCain and 36 percent chose Clinton.

But McCain's standing in Arizona isn't necessarily strong, said Bruce Merrill, director of the poll, in a press release.

In a question asked to only Republicans, 24 percent of those polled said they would vote for McCain in the Arizona primary.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, came in second with 19 percent, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giluliani had 18 percent and Fred Thompson received 17 percent.

"McCain most likely has a small lead over Giuliani and Romney but the differences we found among the top four candidates are within sampling error, which means that 'statistically' all four candidates are about even at this time," Merrill said in a press release.

Reach the reporter at: charlsy.panzino@asu.edu.

The city of Phoenix is a Sanctuary City by the Mayor and he did not let the Names of the WRITE-IN's who were running for his JOB be posted at the polling places as the LAW REQUIRES and Washington,DC is not going to do anything even though I know of 3 people who called them about the Sept. 11, 2007 Election.