Getting Serious About Employer Sanctions
BORJAS BLOG
By George Borjas
Business Week has an interesting story about the business response to the increasing number of state/local statutes that penalize firms for hiring illegal immigrants:
"Michael Francis is getting worried. At this time of year, the 56-year-old Arizona farmer is usually gearing up for his busiest season, culminating between December and February when workers harvest the potatoes, barley, alfalfa, and other crops he plants. But this year, he's concerned that some $4 million worth of crops could rot under the sun because of a lack of workers. Earlier this month, Arizona approved one of the toughest anti-illegal immigration laws in the country and he fears it will send workers fleeing from the state. "My whole life savings is in the fields, and I may not be able to harvest it," he says.
There are similar laments being heard around the country. Arizona is one of more than 100 states and cities that have passed their own immigration rules, even as the federal government has failed in its efforts at immigration reform. Most of the state and city initiatives are aimed at stemming the influx of illegal immigrants, now estimated at 12 million in the U.S.
One common theme among the initiatives is the increasingly prominent role of business. Politicians are asking companies such as Francis' to take on the task of determining who is a legal resident and who is not, particularly as they hire new employees. The idea is that most illegal immigrants come to the U.S. for work and they won't be motivated to enter the country if they can't get jobs. "The flow of illegal immigration into our state is due to the constant demand of some employers for cheap, undocumented labor," said Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano when she signed the state's new law...
In Arizona, Francis and other businessmen say that expecting them to solve the problem that Congress couldn't is simply unfair. They say that government should bear responsibility for stopping illegals from entering the country, and they should be able to concentrate on operating their companies. "Instead of the government stepping up and dealing with [the immigration issue], they are expecting businessmen to become document specialists and to be their enforcement tool," says Kevin Rogers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau and a farmer of cotton and alfalfa. "It's not fair to punish businesses."
...Arizona's law may be the toughest in the country for businesses. Under the new Employers Sanctions Bill, companies that hire illegal immigrants would see their license to operate suspended after the first offense. A second offense would result in what Napolitano calls the "business death penalty"—permanent revocation of a company's license to operate in Arizona."
The story nicely illustrates the two key business responses to the increasing restrictions.
First, there is the Chicken Little response: the sky is going to fall if we can't hire illegal immigrants. I don't think so. The affected businesses will have less money to take to the bank--but many of them will adjust and learn to deal with the cutoff in the flow of cheap illegal labor.
Second, businesses resent being called to enforce immigration laws. And they have something of a point: the responsibility for securing the borders lies elsewhere. Unfortunately, the federal government has not taken that responsibility seriously for some years. But is it really that much of a burden to ask businesses to check a job applicant's social security number against a federal list of "legal" numbers? Is this burden any different than when businesses take the time to check my credit card number against the list of approved numbers every time I buy something at the store? borjas.typepad.com |
