Arizona Prop 202  -  Stop Illegal Hiring

Fraud for Arizona voters

HISTORY

Arizona has the most effective, non-discriminatory employer sanctions law in the nation.  It has been upheld in four court challenges. The Legal Arizona Workers Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2008, requires all Arizona employers to use the E-Verify program. E-Verify is an essential tool to assure a legal workforce.  It achieves an accuracy rate of 97 percent by matching names, birth dates, social security numbers and, in some instances, photos for job seekers.

As early as October of 2007, before the new law went into effect, Arizona saw positive results. Illegal workers were leaving voluntarily.  Fraudulent documents and identity theft that were previously used were no longer enough to obtain employment.

The Stop Illegal Hiring Act (Prop 202) was drafted for a consortium of businesses, chambers of commerce, and trade associations seeking an endless supply of cheap illegal labor.  Those organizations would profit from a modern-day form of slavery − exploiting illegal aliens.   Those same groups were responsible for legal efforts which were rejected by District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court.

When legal challenges were thrown out, those groups devised Stop Illegal Hiring. This brilliant scheme is so deceptive.  It counts on Arizona voters to only read the title and not pay attention to the contents.  These authors of this proposition believe that the 70-75 percent of Arizona voters who want only legal workers employed will not look at the details.    

Here is their deception.

THE PROPOSITION

The “Stop Illegal Hiring Act” guts the primary enforcement mechanisms of the current employer sanctions law:

• It abolishes required use of E-Verify. This is key change that the initiative’s backers cleverly buried on page seven. It would return E-Verify to a voluntary program and allow employers to resume the former “wink and nod” method of verifying employment eligibility through the I-9 process.  Federal Judge John Walker blasted the current federal I-9 process when he said “The I-9 documents (that workers present to companies) are fraudulent.”  Proposition 202 backers wish to perpetuate the same verification system that has been proven over 20 years to be rife with fraud and identity theft.  Governor Napolitano has stated that E-Verify is a very simple process and takes only minutes to accomplish. If an employer complies with the I-9 requirement (which we know is not enforced by the feds) this creates a non-rebuttable presumption they are innocent  (that means a court cannot find them guilty because it cannot be rebutted.
• It requires Arizona to wait until the Federal Government has taken action against an employer before the state takes action.  We all know how ineffective and useless the Federal Government has been. 
• It exempts thousands of Arizona employers by offering the use of the same standards that have not worked in the past.  It removes corporations from the definition of “license.” It has introduced language to subject an employer to sanctions “if the employer has more than four employees and pays hourly wages or salary in cash and not by check or direct deposit to a financial institution” and fails to make withholding deductions, fails to report new hires to the Department of Economic Security or fails to provide coverage for workers compensation. The same provisions already exist for violations by employers with just one employee. It also provides that out of state employers (who are licensed in AZ) are not governed by the employer sanctions law.
• It eliminates the Silent Witness portion of the current law.  All complaints regarding employer violations of the law must be written and signed. This would stop employees from reporting violations. Anonymous tips are an important tool in taking criminals, including serial killers, off the streets.
• It imposes an impossible standard of proof.  High-level managers who are not officers or owners could hire illegal aliens with impunity, and would not face any enforcement.