Judge doesn't stop employer sanctions law

Sierra Vista Herald ^ | Saturday, December 22, 2007 | Howard Fischer

[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.

[Jacquerie]

Thanks. As I understand your comments it would appear easier and certainly with fewer repercussions for illegals to register and vote than for employers to hire them.