Doesn't go far enough, IMO.

Having to follow federal laws and not hire illegal aliens will destroy Az businesses?

kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4383148

Punishments proposed for businesses that hire illegal immigrants

Two Arizona lawmakers have proposed punishments on businesses that contribute to the state's vast immigration problems by hiring foreign workers who sneak across the border to find better-paying jobs.


Even though federal law already outlaws the hiring of illegal immigrants, the lawmakers say the federal government has done a poor job of holding businesses accountable for turning to illicit workers to fill construction, agricultural and service industry jobs.

Among the three employer punishment proposals now in the Arizona Legislature, one would make it a state crime for businesses to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Another would require employers to check the employment eligibility of job prospects by running their names through federal databases, systems that are now used on a voluntary basis. Both bills would carry civil fines of up to $5,000 for each violation.

A third bill would let businesses fire workers who have invalid Social Security numbers and would strip violators of their state-issued business licenses and certifications. It also would give legal workers the right to sue companies that fire them while keeping illegal immigrants on the payroll.

"I'm going after (illegal hirings) because it's wrong," said Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, the Legislature's most vocal proponent for restricting immigration who is sponsoring of one of the bills.

Illegal immigrants account for 10 percent of all Arizona workers and more than 4 percent of all workers in the U.S. economy, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates.

Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point along the country's porous southern border, serves as a hub for smugglers who transport illegal workers across the country.

Even though immigrants provide the economy with cheap labor, Arizona and other border states shoulder huge health care and education costs for illegal workers and their families.

Public pressure is mounting for state politicians who face re-election races this year to confront the problem, even though immigration has long been considered the sole province of the federal government.

Employer-sanction proposals have failed at the Legislature over the last two years in the face of opposition from the business lobby.

Farrell Quinlan, spokesman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said `the federal government's employment eligibility system isn't advanced enough to handle the demands of tens of thousands of businesses checking up on their workers.

"It would shut down hiring," Quinlan said.

Instead, the business group will likely seek state-provided incentives to encourage employers to receive training on meeting the government's employment eligibility requirements, Quinlan said.

The lawmakers pushing the employer sanctions have different motivations.

Democratic Sen. Bill Brotherton of Phoenix said the movement for the state to crack down on illegal immigration has focused on denying illegal border-crossers government benefits and done nothing to confront employers who turn to illegal labor.

"I don't think it's appropriate for us to turn a blind eye to those businesses and keep pounding away at the immigrants," Brotherton said.

Pearce said the jobs given to illegal immigrants contribute to a strain on taxpayer resources, because the workers and their families use government services that they don't pay for.

Pearce said Arizona doesn't have to rely on the federal government to enforce the ban on hiring illegal workers and that the state's Registrar of Contractors could check on employers.

Brotherton said he plans to seek $500,000 for the Arizona Attorney General's Office to enforce his proposed ban on illegal hirings.

"There would be a great deal of dependence on honest reporting," said Attorney General Terry Goddard, a fellow Democrat who supports Brotherton's proposals. "There is not enough in the $500,000 that Sen. Brotherton has proposed to inspect every work site."

Republican Rep. Bill Konopnicki of Safford, a restaurant and radio station owner who opposes employer sanctions, said businesses struggle to find workers to fill jobs and do their best to comply with the government's deeply flawed employment eligibility rules.

Business people aren't experts in scrutinizing records presented by new employees to show employment eligibility, Konopnicki said. Anti-discrimination laws also limit the way that businesses can question prospective employees.

The proposed punishments could cripple Arizona's economy if proponents of employer sanctions succeed, Konopnicki said.

"They don't know what they are playing with," Konopnicki said.

our dyke/transsexual governess will veto it

Quoted: <Snip> "They don't know what they are playing with," Konopnicki said.<Snip>

They know exactly what they are "playing with" and it's about damned time somebody started "playing with it!"  

Greedy bastards willing to sell their country's future down the river for a dollar.  I'm sure the whole damned economy will collapse because there won't be as many tuburculoid criminals in the restaurant kitchens coughing in your food.

Well, at least AZ won't be full for the rest of us

The penalty should be six months and a day jail time for each offence. Everyone in the companys administration from the CEO down is liable.  In the case of private parties hiring illegals, same thing.

Such a bill would open up jobs for all those displaced Katrina refugees.

It's gonna be fun paying 3X more for fruits and vegetables that no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields...

The artical states that illeglas make for 4% of the merican work force.  Last I reard unemployment was around 5%.  Seems to me that we could lower unemployment by 80% (down to just 1% total unemployment) just by enforcing our laws.  Maybe we could make up that last 1% by building and staffing prisons to house some of the violators.

Seems like a win/win solution to me!  

-K

It's about time that the .gov went after the companies who hire illegals.  There are far fewer companies than there are illegals.  You may not be able to stop the illegals from coming in, but it is probably much easier to go after companies that hire them, and after a bit, when the companies understand that the .gov means business, they will quit hiring illegals.  

Quoted: It's gonna be fun paying 3X more for fruits and vegetables that no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields...

Bullshit!

Older article but adjusting the numbers between then and now wouldn't make it that bad.

www.cis.org/articles/1996/msk4-9-96.html

Illegal Workers Aren't Needed
To Make Sure We Keep Eating Our Vegetables

By Mark Krikorian

Chicago Tribune
April 9, 1996

Illegal immigrants make up a significant portion of the work force in the production of fresh fruits and vegetables. Credible estimates, including the Labor Department's National Agricultural Workers Survey, put the figure at one-quarter or less.

Whenever discussion focuses on controlling illegal immigration, as it is now in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, people begin to ask: If we cut off the supply of illegal workers, how will we afford fresh produce? Won't tomatoes rival steak in price, and salad be reserved for the very rich?

Lobbyists for growers who use illegal immigrants are happy to hear these questions asked. If the public thinks the affordability of food depends on illegal immigrants working in the fields, it is less likely to support vigorous immigration law enforcement. Or, at the least, people will be sympathetic to calls for a guest-worker program, whereby foreign farm workers would be imported for seasonal work if the supply of illegal immigrants is cut off.

Although the House recently voted down an amendment to its immigration bill that would have established a guest-worker program, the Senate is scheduled to debate its illegal immigration bill next week and may yet consider such a measure.

But is it true that illegal labor is needed to put food on our tables? Although some agricultural economists have come up with informal, back-of-the-envelope estimates on the impact on supermarket produce prices when illegal immigrants are barred from the agriculture industry, the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies recently released an analysis of this issue.

The study found that even a sudden transition to an all-legal, non- guest-worker farm work force would be a non-event for consumers. Price increases would be small and short-lived � less than the seasonal fluctuations that occur naturally.

Specifically, price increases would depend on the season, according to the study's authors, economists Wallace Huffman and Alan McCunn of Iowa State University. During the summer and fall, when most fresh fruit and vegetables in the stores are domestically grown, prices would be about 6 percent higher for the first one or two years, and after that transitional period would level off about 3 percent higher than what they would have been.

In the winter and spring, the initial impact would be under 4 percent, then settling to less than 2 percent. (At my supermarket in Manassas, Va., that would mean tomatoes would see an increase of 3 cents over this week's price of 78 cents per pound.)

Note that these modest price increases would be counter-cyclical � that is, they would be greatest when prices are naturally lower (summer and fall) and least when prices are naturally higher (winter and spring).

In any case, even these results are probably exaggerated. In real life, illegal immigrants would not magically be removed all at once � their proportion of the agricultural work force would gradually decrease over a period of several years as law enforcement improved, allowing time for growers to adjust.

Nor would imports of fresh fruits and vegetables explode: The study found that they could be expected to increase by a mere 1 percent.

So, who would pick the tomatoes? Despite the increase in wages that would result from cutting the supply of illegal workers, growers' spokesmen are correct in saying that unemployed Americans not already familiar with farm work are unlikely to be attracted.

Freshman economics tells us what would happen. First, growers would use the now-limited resource of labor more efficiently, in contrast to the notoriously wasteful practices they've grown accustomed to, thus drawing in many unemployed and underemployed farmworkers. In addition, growers would do what other businessmen do when faced with a finite supply of labor �mechanize.

If removing illegal workers from agriculture would have no discernible impact on consumers, and would not lead to a surge in imports, then what rationale is there for a guest-worker program? The only remaining argument for such an arrangement is that it would help maintain the profit margins and market shares of certain American corporations by expanding the supply of farmworkers and thus keeping wages low. This may be reason enough to institute what amounts to a new farm subsidy. But whatever benefits might accrue to growers would have to be weighed against an unavoidable increase in illegal immigration; a reduction in the educational attainment of our work force; the retardation of technological development in agriculture; the deterioration of wages and working conditions in agriculture as more workers chase fewer jobs; and ever-higher social welfare expenditures for the throngs of idle farm workers.

Whatever decision Congress makes ought to be based on fact, not anecdote or supposition. And one prominent fact is that neither illegal immigrants nor guest-workers are needed to make sure we keep eating our vegetables.

Quoted: It's gonna be fun paying 3X more for fruits and vegetables that no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields...

 That myth has been so disproven I'm not even going to get into it in this thread.  

As far as people crying about them going out of business, too fucking bad.  It's like saying "Waaaah, since my daycare can't hire pedophiles I'm going to go out of business."  Fuck 'em.  Wanna emigrate to this country?  Fine - DO IT LEGALLY.  

My fucking grandparents did it, right after WWII, speaking only German. They learned the language and assimilated - they had to - my Dad used to be the recipient of regular ass kickings for being a "kraut" so he learned English RFN. Here's what they DIDN'T do:

- they didn't cry about ATM machines not being in their language
- they didn't try to bring 100% of their culture here (otherwise why come here?), and impose it upon others
- they didn't evade paying taxes
- they never looked to welfare, not even as a "little help in the beginning"
- they didn't drive around with no license or insurance
- they didn't expect free health care

In short, instead of holding a fucking press conference to whine, they became Americans. Nowadays, I see these jackoffs bitching about what they are "entitled" to and waving mexican flags. FUCK THEM. Want to come to the US? Great - do it the right way. Starting off your life in the US as a felon doesn't sit well with most Americans, the price of lettuce going up by 2 pennies be damned.  And even if lettuce DID triple in price?  Well, my principles aren't that cheap....I'm sorry to hear yours are.

The illegals are a slap in the face for every real immigrant that came here legally
AFTER proving they were not criminals, not diseased and not a welfare case

What I'm saying is that there is no way that Americas poor or kids in high school are gonna be lining up for these jobs.  12 hour days starting at 6am in the scorching heat bent over doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage....yeah right

Quoted: It's gonna be fun paying 3X more for fruits and vegetables that no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields...

I would gladly pay more if all my produce that is grown in America is picked by Americans.

Quoted: What I'm saying is that there is no way that Americas poor or kids in high school are gonna be lining up for these jobs.  12 hour days starting at 6am in the scorching heat bent over doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage....yeah right

Okay, how many of those farm jobs are there
and, how many able-bodied people are on WELFARE

In my opinion, this is the only thing that will stop illegals comming into this country. If there is no money for themhere they have no reason to come. I'm sure they aren't comming here to enjoy our weather. I hope they do this in every state.

Quoted: What I'm saying is that there is no way that Americas poor or kids in high school are gonna be lining up for these jobs.  12 hour days starting at 6am in the scorching heat bent over doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage....yeah right

Markets will adjust and adapt if ALLOWED to.

As long as the welfare system in place artifically tilts the playing field by paying people not to work things will get worse before they get better.

Oh, and fuck minimum wage too.  The market will adapt better without it.  I'm up here in MT right now.  I see signs at fast food places advertising $7.50 an hour and $10.00 an hour jobs.  One place has a sign up offering a $200 "bounty" for new hires.

Supply and demand takes care of things.

Quoted: What I'm saying is that there is no way that Americas poor or kids in high school are gonna be lining up for these jobs.  12 hour days starting at 6am in the scorching heat bent over doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage....yeah right

Americans did those jobs before, and would do them again for the right money.  Around here farmers are paying 8-12 bucks an hour for illegal aliens.

All of you are racists!!!




I hope they get this pushed through.

Quoted: Quoted: What I'm saying is that there is no way that Americas poor or kids in high school are gonna be lining up for these jobs.  12 hour days starting at 6am in the scorching heat bent over doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage....yeah right Americans did those jobs before, and would do them again for the right money.  Around here farmers are paying 8-12 bucks an hour for illegal aliens.

My dad was a migrant worker starting in the 40s when he was 8 years old.  He did farm work in TX, CA, WA and IL and said that everywhere he went it was only illegal Mexicans in the fields...and this was 50 years ago

I'd like to see the fine pushed higher, with the business owner liable for higher fines every time they hire an illegal. Even in Mi. it's a huge problem. The last new house building site I was at had 99% mexicans who spoke NO english whatsoever. I guarantee they were not here legally. They are actually decent workers, but they are criminals nonetheless.

Quoted: no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields...

Where did you get that crazy idea from?  I guess I just imagined all of the whites I saw picking peaches and strawberries in the past year.

Are you claiming blacks and whites in the US are too lazy to work hard?  Is that your racist claim?  I know several militant, anti-American Hispanic males that you would feel right at home with that make those same claims.z

Quoted: Quoted: no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields... Where did you get that crazy idea from?  I guess I just imagined all of the whites I saw picking peaches and strawberries in the past year. Are you claiming blacks and whites in the US are too lazy to work hard?  Is that your racist claim?  I know several militant, anti-American Hispanic males that you would feel right at home with that make those same claims.z

Just making the racist claims that Americans won't...............

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: no Americans are gonna want to pick from the fields... Where did you get that crazy idea from?  I guess I just imagined all of the whites I saw picking peaches and strawberries in the past year. Are you claiming blacks and whites in the US are too lazy to work hard?  Is that your racist claim?  I know several militant, anti-American Hispanic males that you would feel right at home with that make those same claims.z Just making the racist claims that Americans won't...............

All of you are racists!!!

As far as people crying about them going out of business, too fucking bad. It's like saying "Waaaah, since my daycare can't hire pedophiles I'm going to go out of business." Fuck 'em. Wanna emigrate to this country? Fine - DO IT LEGALLY.

First of all, nobody's going to go out of business. Prices will just rise. It's a matter of competition, not total demand. Are people going to stop eating or stop buying houses? Of course not. What drives the illegal labor market is competition, not demand. A guy building houses with all legal labor just cannot compete with the companies using cheap (read indocumented) labor; or a restaurant owner, or a landscaper, or well you get the picture. If ALL employers had to use legal (read more expensive) labor everybody's still in business but the price to the concumer goes up. So let's see. Would I rather pay an extra $2.50 when I go to the restaurant (just about the cost difference for legal/illegal help) or have a wide open border with people pouring across it, some of whom are intent on mudering my family? Guess I'll have to think about that one.

As to the cost of produce: It sounds like a good argument on its face that stopping illegal crossings would drastically increase the produce but, like so many easy arguments, it fails upon closer examination. Something like 65-68% of the produce in this country come out of the Yuma valley. (A desert. Go figure.) The Mexican labor used in those fields is under an extremely controlled ingress/egress format. The Mexican workers are in buses on the Mexico side before the crack of dawn. They all come across through controlled access points and are surrounded all day. At sundown they get back on the buses and go back to their own country. Not perfect but, pretty darned good IMHO.

My one big concern in holding employers responsible is the very real possibility that legislators will come up with laws that are so fucked up (Can you imagine such a thing?) that it will be impossible for the employer, absent having an FBI field agent on staff, to do the right thing.

Quoted: As far as people crying about them going out of business, too fucking bad. It's like saying "Waaaah, since my daycare can't hire pedophiles I'm going to go out of business." Fuck 'em. Wanna emigrate to this country? Fine - DO IT LEGALLY. First of all, nobody's going to go out of business. Prices will just rise. It's a matter of competition, not total demand. Are people going to stop eating or stop buying houses? Of course not. What drives the illegal labor market is competition, not demand. A guy building houses with all legal labor just cannot compete with the companies using cheap (read indocumented) labor; or a restaurant owner, or a landscaper, or well you get the picture. If ALL employers had to use legal (read more expensive) labor everybody's still in business but the price to the concumer goes up. So let's see. Would I rather pay an extra $2.50 when I go to the restaurant (just about the cost difference for legal/illegal help) or have a wide open border with people pouring across it, some of whom are intent on mudering my family? Guess I'll have to think about that one. As to the cost of produce: It sounds like a good argument on its face that stopping illegal crossings would drastically increase the produce but, like so many easy arguments, it fails upon closer examination. Something like 65-68% of the produce in this country come out of the Yuma valley. (A desert. Go figure.) The Mexican labor used in those fields is under an extremely controlled ingress/egress format. The Mexican workers are in buses on the Mexico side before the crack of dawn. They all come across through controlled access points and are surrounded all day. At sundown they get back on the buses and go back to their own country. Not perfect but, pretty darned good IMHO. My one big concern in holding employers responsible is the very real possibility that legislators will come up with laws that are so fucked up (Can you imagine such a thing?) that it will be impossible for the employer, absent having an FBI field agent on staff, to do the right thing.

All the bs about NEW LAWS is just a smoke screen to delay action until it is too late to do anything about the problem
Already in Houston, there are MANY restaurants and fast food places that would most likely
be forced to shut their doors until a replacement staff could be hired and trained
the construction industry would also slow down considerably

It is already against the law to enter the country through barbed wire fences
it is already against the law to purchase and use fraudulent identification
it is already against the law to do MOST of what illegals do......deport them and
BUILD THE DAMN WALL ALREADY

I would be more than happy to pay 10 times as much for produce(which is BS anyway).
Just think of how much each one of us is paying in taxes every year to support illegal immigrants who use medical and social services(not to mention the costs of illegal crime).
The fine for an employer who knowingly hires illegals should be more like 10 years in prison and $100k.  Perhaps then the bastards would have an incentive to make sure that illegals could not find jobs here.  Right now all they do is reap the benefits of cheap(for them)labor and we pay all the associated costs.

PS Just wait and see if el presidente's guest worker(=amessty)bill get through Congress.  Isn't part of the presidental oath of office to enforce the laws of the United States?  Perhaps someone should remind Bush of his oath of office.