And thanks to the Arizona SB1070 Law, the various District Attorney's, City Attorney's and State Attorney General may not have a choice in the matter.
A fact that seems to have eluded Sen John McCain of Arizona.
One of the key aspects of SB1070 is the ability for any citizen (or group) to sue the State for failing to fully and forcefully implement the law.
from SB1070.
G. A PERSON MAY BRING AN ACTION IN SUPERIOR COURT TO CHALLENGE ANY OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE THAT ADOPTS OR IMPLEMENTS A POLICY THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL LAW.
Logic dictates that way you implement effective law enforcement is to target the bigger criminals and make it impossible for them to facility smaller crimes. Yet, as the fires of the immigration debate flare, the only crime that seems to be discussed is the illegal entry into the country.
What about the crime of failing to pay federal unemployment benefits because the person you've hired doesn't have a valid Social Security number?
From BusinessTaxRecovery.com
If you have employees, you absolutely must deduct and withhold various taxes from the paychecks of your employees. Since you are deducting money from the employee’s paycheck, you are handling their funds. This fact is very important to the IRS and it places great emphasis on any failure to deposit employment taxes.
If you fail to pay employment taxes, you will be subject to a 100 percent penalty. Yes, 100 percent. Known as the “trust fund recovery penalty”, the penalty is assessed against the person responsible for paying the taxes, not the entity. The person can be the owner, corporate officer or other “responsible person.” In short, a business entity is not going to protect you from the wrath of the IRS.
These companies are cheating on their taxes, which is in return draining the state of revenues needed for public Hospitals and Schools, many of which their underground employees have to use.
What about the crime of failing to abide by State Employment requirements? Arizona Sate Law has a specific section on this subject.
A. An employer shall not knowingly employ an unauthorized alien. If, in the case when an employer uses a contract, subcontract or other independent contractor agreement to obtain the labor of an alien in this state, the employer knowingly contracts with an unauthorized alien or with a person who employs or contracts with an unauthorized alien to perform the labor, the employer violates this subsection.
First Time Violators must Fire all illegal employees and enter a probation period. A Second violation during the probation period can lead to having all their Licenses with the State suspended and permanently revoked, including one would assume - their Business License.
You're Done, Game over.
State governments haven't begun rampaging through the business community like Godzilla this way, because they know that it would have an massive negative impact on the economy as they essentially evict company after company from being able to function in the state.
This is why uber-panderers like McCain say we should bother to implement the existing law "until the border is secure" - however, they might no longer have a choice.
When SB1070 goes into effect, if it isn't stopped by a federal injunction, besides whatever the police might be doing on the streets with people wearing "suspicious shoes" The State Attorney General CAN BE SUED if he doesn't aggressively pursue these criminal companies to the fullest extent of the law.
Rounding up 12 Million people and deporting them (although most would probably remain in the country under "Catch and Release" for as much as five years) is not going to happen, but taking out these companies is far easier since their aren't nearly as many of them.
Personally I would go much further than simply shutting these companies down, once they go into probation they should be reported to the State Tax Board, Labor Board and IRS. If they haven't been allowing their employees 15 min breaks every 4 hours, ensure they have a lunch, paid them them time and half for overtime and double-time for shifts over 12 hours they've been breaking the law. I think the State should bar no holds in getting it's money back for everything this company has Failed to disclose and pay into the general fund.
I think they should have to pay the difference in the prevailing wage for each illegal employee.
They should have to pay for the Health-care these employees certainly didn't get, and the public had to provide.
They should have to pay for their Social security & Retirement benefits.
They should have to pay for the cost of education for their children, which was provided by the public.
I think they should have to pay for all the competitive and financial advantages that hiring undocumented workers provides them, or else they'll just keep doing it once the probation period has elapsed. If these companies were forced to do this, most of the major complaint that "illegals are a drain on the systems" would evaporate. They aren't the "drain" because they aren't the ones who are supposed to be paying for all this anyway - these companies are.
Just as Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs has shown Americans will pretty much do any kind of job, but they won't do it without decent compensation and a benefits plan. Taking away the competitive advantage of hiring undocumented labor, is like taking all the John's off the street. No John's, No Hookers, No crime.
And it doesn't require changing the law to do this, some of it can happen now.
23-201. Obtaining labor by false pretenses; civil liability; classification
A. A person who employs for wages any person in any occupation, and who at the time of employing him does not have sufficient assets within the county in which the work or labor is to be performed over and above all exemptions allowed by law to cover the amount of wages accruing to the employee for the term of two weeks, and who makes false representations or pretenses as to having such assets, and after labor has been done by the employee under such employment, fails, upon the employee's discharge or resignation, or for a period of five days after the wages are payable, to pay the employee, on demand, the wages due, is guilty of obtaining labor under false pretenses.
Besides closing this loophole here's another flaw that needs to addressed, these are the current requirements for a company to sponsor a legal worker Visa.
To Qualify for the H1B Visa Program, you must work in a 'specialty occupation': The core Specialty Occupations include: IT, Computing, Finance, Accounting, Banking, Marketing, Advertising, PR, Sales, Recruiting, Engineering (all types), Teaching, HealthCare/Medical, Legal, Lawyers, Networking, Telecoms, Business, Management and Hospitality.
An H1B visa is typically valid for up to six (6) years and entitles your spouse (husband/wife) and children (under 21) to accompany you and live in the USA on an H4 visa. The H4 dependent visa does not allow your spouse/children to work (unless they get their own H1B visa).
Pardon me but I don't see Gardener, Plumber, textile worker, landscaper or agricultural worker on that list. And even though NAFTA provides for a special TN Visa only available to Canadian and Mexican immigrants who wish to work in the U.S., the "speciality occupations" of that unique visa still doesn't include blue collar workers. (Note: There are other Visa types that do - but those still require an potential employer to sponsor the Visa request and are only available for "Temporary", "Seasonal" or "One-Time" jobs - not available for someone to immigrate and work for 5-years the way that an H-1B Visas is)
This is the Reality that America Has Failed to Face - Our Immigration Policies are Biased against the Poor. This is the modern day Slave Trade in action, to excape poverty and destitution these Undocumented Workers are selling themselves to Coyotes to be transported and then exploited as wage Slaves with no benefits and none of the protections other workers enjoy – we need to be focusing on the Slave Drivers, not the people they virtually own.
In exchange for steady flow of cheap under-the-table blue collar laborers, America maintains the False Pretense that there is a "Legal Path" for these types of workers to enter the nation when the fact is there isn't. People who enter the U.S. legally using other types of Visas, Can't Work here legally.
If we allow lawful companies to bring in immigrant workers when they can't find local labor for specific jobs, regardless of what the job may be, those people won't need to run for the border and hop the fence anymore in order to try and find a way to make a living, also trying to "secure the border with the danged fence" will no longer be this seemingly hopeless war of attrition. We keep building it, and they keep climbing it. What are we - Cold War East Germany?
If we did this, only people who don't want to get a legal job would be entering the country illegally - which would take us two giant steps toward solving this crisis without harassing every legal resident with brown skin and the wrong style of shoes.
Vyan
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