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Monday, January 26, 2009
Ind. Law - "Lawmakers renew effort against illegal immigrant workers"
Updating this ILB entry from Jan. 25th, Eric Bradner of the Evansville Courier & Press reports today:
As unemployment in Indiana has climbed past 7 percent, state lawmakers have renewed last year's failed efforts to crack down on businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.If a company is cited three times for employing illegal immigrants, it could lose its business license to operate in Indiana, under three similar bills introduced this year.
Supporters of the legislation say those penalties would keep businesses from employing illegal immigrants at below-market wages, and would dry up opportunities for illegal immigrants.
"You've got to take the economic incentive of hiring illegal immigrants off the table in order to deal with the issue," said Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, a key backer of the three strikes legislation.
The three bills would require businesses to use a federal system called E-Verify to check the legal status of potential employees. Any company that does use the free electronic system would be immune from prosecution because that counts as a good-faith effort to hire legal workers, Delph said.
The bills contain escalating penalties for hiring illegal workers, beginning with an administrative slap on the wrist for the first violation.
"It's not designed to punish law-abiding citizens or law-abiding businesses. You have to be a really bad actor and very stupid ... to be punished by this bill," Delph said. "How many times does a business need to be corrected before they get it?"
Similar legislation won approval of both chambers of the Legislature last year, but the bill died because the differences between the House and Senate versions couldn't be resolved in the waning moments of the session.
Business groups, including the state Chamber of Commerce, opposed the bill last year because of its penalty provisions on companies that are violators. * * *
The route a three strikes bill would take through the Legislature is unclear. Delph has authored one version, Senate Bill 580. Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, has written another. And Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Riley, introduced the third bill.
All three achieve similar objectives, and Delph said he will take a back seat to Kruse this year.
Rep. Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon, is chairman of the House Public Policy Committee, which a three strikes bill might have to pass through.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 26, 2009 12:07 PM
Posted to Indiana Law