Posted on 12/22/2007 11:10:13 AM PST by HiJinx
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX — Arizona’s new employer sanctions law will take effect as scheduled Jan. 1.
On Friday, Judge Neil Wake rejected a request by business groups and others to bar the state from implementing the law while its constitutionality is litigated. And just hours later the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused an emergency request to second-guess Wake and keep the law from being enforced.
Julie Pace, one of the lead attorneys representing those challenging the law said that leaves her clients without legal options until at least Jan. 16. That’s when Wake will consider the latest legal attacks to its validity.
The law makes it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers. Offenders could find all their state licenses to do business suspended or revoked.
In his decision Friday, Wake said he had to decide who would be hurt more if he let the law take effect or kept it from being enforced. The judge said he easily concluded the greater harm would be to the state and, in particular, legal Arizona residents.
“Those who suffer the most from unauthorized alien labor are those whom federal and Arizona law most explicitly protect,” Wake said.
“They are the competing lawful workers, many unskilled, low-wage, sometimes near or under the margin of poverty, who strain in individual competition and in a wage economy depressed by the great and expanding number of people who will work for less,” the judge continued. “If the act is suspended, whether for a month or for years, the human cost for the least among us, measured by each person’s continued deprivation, multiplied by their number, will be a great quantum.”
Conversely, Wake said the challengers to the law have not proven they will suffer any sort of hardship if the law takes effect as scheduled Jan. 1.
He pointed out the county attorneys who would investigate complaints against employers all said in court they would not file charges against any violators before Feb. 1. Wake said that gives him time to consider the legal arguments of the groups who contend the statute is unconstitutional.
Nor was Wake convinced companies will suffer from the other requirement of the law that they check the legal status of new employees through the federal government’s E-Verify system. He said their attorneys offered only “sweeping generalities” of harm, mostly related to the cost of using the program.
He pointed out that none of the groups who actually sued claim they don’t have a computer or Internet access.
“The only cost is employee time in learning the program … and assisting new employees who wish to communicate with the federal government to resolve out-of-date government records,” Wake wrote in his 29-page order. “That would be a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year for the large majority of employers.”
Wake acknowledged there is a debate in this country about whether the benefits of having undocumented workers in this country, including lower labor expenses for employers, outweigh the costs.
But he said that is a decision not for him but instead for elected officials.
Attorney Julie Pace, who represents many of the business groups challenging the law, already has filed legal papers asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a restraining order to keep the law from taking effect until a final ruling on its constitutionality.
Pace said the logic Wake used in refusing to keep the law from taking effect in the interim is flawed. She was particularly critical of his conclusion that poor workers would be affected if the law is stayed.
“He didn’t cite any evidence to support his conclusions,” she said.
“He did it based on national consequences regarding immigration not specific to Arizona,” Pace said. “Obviously, the court has a perspective.”
One basis for the challenge is language in the federal Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1996 which bars state and local governments from imposing civil and criminal penalties on employers who hire undocumented workers. But Wake pointed out that law says states can use “licensing and similar laws” to punish those hiring people not here legally.
Wake also rejected contentions of challengers that exception for states to take away licenses applies only if a firm has first been found guilty by a federal hearing officer. He called that “wholly without textural basis in the statute.”
Business organizations aren’t the only ones trying to void the law. Some groups which provide services to Hispanics as well as the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union are making their own legal arguments that the law will result in discrimination.
That's your job, sweetie, not the Judge's.
Update Ping!
This is a more in-depth report of the hearing from yesterday wherein a federal judge denied a stay from enforcement of Arizona’s employer sanctions law.
Nana and I were talking...for a company to prove harm as a result of this law, they’d have to admit to violating federal labor and immigration laws. Now, that would be an interesting case to litigate...
This is encouraging news, especially in light of the earlier decisions that have effectively said, "Immigration enforcement is a Federal issue" while we have an Administration that is not enforcing those laws.
Note the plaintiffs atty (Price) tried to argue that the ‘96 law expressly forbids states from doing what this law does.
The judge countered with the truth. This State law is within the bounds of the ‘96 immigration legislation by dealing with business licenses as a form of punishment.
I like this judge.
Sorry, her name is Pace, not Price...
Yes, this is the key.
I hate the fact that we've gotten to this point, though. What a game.
"Business licenses"...that's another topic. :-)
Tell me about it...try going nationwide...
I would be happy with a law against using fake or other’s SS#’s. It should be a crime with stiff puninshment directed against those who violate it. (/sarc)
We ought to make bronze plaque of this judge’s judgement.
It will be interesting to see if small businesses are hit harder by this law than big businesses. Who will actually be shut down?
Will newspapers that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will TV and radio stations that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will banks that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will entire supermarket chains that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will gasoline trucking companies that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will power companies that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will hospitals that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will cell phone companies that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will cable companies that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will school districts that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
Will governments that have hired illegal aliens be shut down?
If not, smaller businesses will be able to argue that they have been unfairly targeted.
If not, expect the immigrant labor to migrate to the protected industries.
I have to admit I'm shocked by this news. There a freeper on another thread yesterday who said he had a c-note on the 9th circus blowing this law away. I almost replied back nobody was going to take him up on that bet with the 9th circus' history.
More good news out of AZ.
Hooray!
Almost unbelievably the 9th Circus does the correct thing!
More good news out of AZ.....
as the illegals re-located....more bad news for all other states!!!!!
Well, yes. There’s that. But many are returning to their home countries too because of AZ’s crackdown. Or so they say.
Since the federal government keeps jerking us around and isn’t getting its act together, I think a lot of state legislatures are watching how this plays out in AZ.
Hopefully it’ll give them a model to work from in the end.
Since the state is cracking down on employers who hire illegals, does anyone know if local voting registrars are likewise required to verify the status of voters? Any penalties for knowingly registering illegals? Not likely of course, but I do not know.
I know from experience that Arizona State University has found illegals working on campus - usually employees of subcontractors. When this happens, the first call the cops make is to ICE.
The 9th Circuit will probably wait until this judge has a full hearing and renders judgement on the constitutionality of the law before taking up the appeal that will surely follow. If I read correctly, that hearing is set for 1/16/08.
Arizona has a primary requirement that voters show 2 forms of picture ID to register to vote, and that they must be on the registrar’s rolls to actually cast a ballot.
There are substitutes for picture ID, such as utility bills, that make it easier for an illegal to register...
What I don’t know is whether the rolls were purged before the new requirements went into effect.
bump
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