The Fight Over Immigration Turns To Businesses

The Supreme Courts decision to uphold Arizona's Legal Workers Act has set off a firestorm of speculation about how Congress and other states will react to this employment verification legislation. One thing is for certain, a new debate on immigration has shifted towards businesses who employ immigrants.

Julia Preston of the New York Times recently held an interview with Neal Conan on NPR' S Face The Nation, which works as a great Q and A about were the current immigration debate is going:

CONAN: And how does this Supreme Court decision change things for employers in Arizona?

Ms. PRESTON: I don't think it actually changes it very much, because this particular law had never been held up by the federal court. The law that the Supreme Court ruled on actually is - was very narrowly tailored to fit a specific terminology in immigration law.  And so it wasn't actually that surprising that the Supreme Court upheld this statute, although what was a little surprising was the sweeping statement that the court made about the possibility and scope of states to act on immigration policy in the way that Arizona did. And I was out in Arizona recently. In fact, the law - the state statute has not been used that frequently so far to prosecute employers. There have been relatively few cases brought in Arizona so far against employers under the state law.

The take away from all this is that, more then anything else, business communities are opposed to these mandatory employment verification programs.

CONAN: Well, the controversial part of the law was what the opponents called the business death penalty.

Ms. PRESTON: Yes, that's right. And so - and I think it's also good to note that Arizona - as it has in other areas of immigration law - went further than most states in this area, so that on the second violation of knowing hiring of an illegal immigrant, a business stands in Arizona to lose its business license permanently. So it's a very severe penalty. I think the cases are hard to make, though.

Later on in the program Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce appeared on the show, I will write about some of his dubious claims in a separate post. In the mean time read the full transcript here.