US Supreme Court upholds Arizona law re:knowingly hiring illegals

...in regards to penalizing employers for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The impact of this is it allows any state to set their own rules in regards to these types of things unless Congress gets off their asses and addresses illegal immigration seriously. (Which knowing the likes of Obama and Reid won't happen from that side of the aisle without a promise of 1985 style amnesty which once again won't work.)

Not the law I thought the post was referring to, but it doesn't seem like this was unconstitutional on its face, and I agree in principle - employers should be penalized for hiring illegals.

This isn't the law that tells police to interrogate people for looking Mexican, which is what I initially assumed.

edited 26th May '11 11:58:57 AM by Fighteer

HAY TROPERS: READ FIGHTEER'S POST BEFORE YOU POST A RANT ABOUT THIS.

<Mod Hat ON>

Changed the thread title. Let's not deliberately try to start argument threads by using inflammatorily vague thread titles, hmmm?

<Mod Hat OFF>

edited 26th May '11 12:18:46 PM by Madrugada

Thank you.

This seems pretty reasonable to me. Hiring illegal immigrants is, you know, illegal. A business that knowingly breaks the law should expect to face punishment.

Now, having read through the article, it seems the objection has something to do with the state not having the authority to make such a law. That's a bit more of a confusing area, but I personally don't see a reason it shouldn't be able to.

How long till the businesses start bribing their way out of this? Oh wait, they already have.

Well, at least maybe it'll get them to throw their support behind ACTUALLY doing something constructive regarding immigration.

They've been celebrating the benefits of having workers who wouldn't complain, who would let them get away with all sorts of mistreatment, all while wringing their hands about how terrible it is. Yet they pocketed the difference.

Though I do wonder, does the Arizona law have the exception for yardwork and in-house labor? That was popular elsewhere.

Still, this will do nothing, there are millions of people, you think they're just going to throw up their hands and go home? Nope, they might not even have the money to do that. I'd rather we have a productive solution than this half-assed attempt.

We must have some kind of voluntary amnesty program. There's no other way to actually get all the illegals in the country counted and managed. Even if we end up throwing them out, you have to identify them somehow.

What's ironic is that a National ID program would go a long way towards solving the problem of people using false information (SSN's, etc.) to get employment, but that's anathema to conservatives as a "Big Brother" approach.

If I read this right, this is an Arizona law that basically adds extra penalties to something that's already illegal under Federal law. As such, I don't see that it conflicts with federal immigration policy, and I think the decision's basically correct. It doesn't criminalize things that weren't already illegal, nor does it lay any unreasonable burden on anyone above and beyond what's required by federal law.

There should be far, far stiffer penalties, and much more manpower focused on THIS end of detection and enforcement than the border. Trying to exact justice from the immigrants is largely pointless, since they have nothing to lose, but walloping the employers is a far better course of action, since they have everything to lose. Symptom versus cause, etc…

edited 26th May '11 6:41:27 PM by EricDVH

How is this an issue?

Well I'm for open borders but not exploitation.

I'm for Doom Fortresses on the border.

While I think employers knowingly hiring illegal workers (and exploiting them) is a problem, sometimes the employer just didn't know the guy wasn't a citizen. For construction/labor type work, background checks simply aren't worth the money. Also, not every employer is out to screw the immigrant; my parents hired a guy and helped him get first his green card, then his citizenship. They also went to bat for him against a bank. *

This is not unheard of; many small construction firms hire "illegals" and treat them well. Simply making it against the law to hire them and punishing those who do fixes nothing.

Also, y'all would do well to remember that not every business owner is a money-grubbing assfucker. Some actually care about their employees...usually the smaller ones, the ones who get hurt the most by legislation like this.

Problem is drunk the rat bastards outnumber the good guys.

Not disputing that, Tuefel. But the good guys still exist, a fact that is often forgotten.

What's worse is that the cost burden of E-Verify falls mainly on small businesses.

Oh we know they exist but sadly their honest efforts do little to stem the tide of corruption.

Another solution would be to make getting an honest work visa/green card easier. There are honestly a few hurdles to leap that are ridiculous. Some of the requirements are fine but others need work. Same for becoming a legal U.S. Citizen. On average your lucky if you get it, inside of 10 years. Some folks wait longer.

I believe addressing these issues would eliminate or reduce the need for laws like this in the first place. The need for the law is a symptom of a much larger nation wide problem that is lot more complex then just illegal immigration.

edited 26th May '11 8:15:44 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The main problem here, I think, is that wages are low enough where immigrants are an attractive labor prospect to employers. While it obviously wouldn't fix price distortion in higher paying job brackets, bumping up the minimum wage a ton across the board (probably about $12/hour would be right) would help a lot, especially since a lot of industries have (legal!) special sub-minimum wages, like the $1.60/hour agricultural or $2-3/hour tipped ones.

^^Then they can pass those costs onto consumers, which serves them right for dealing with businesses that depend so heavily on cheap labor.

edited 26th May '11 8:27:02 PM by EricDVH

How would raising the minimum wage for legal workers (making them more expensive) incentivize paying them over illegal workers who can't complain?

If you want to do something about exploitation and stop wages being driven down, give amnesty to any illegal that has a documented complaint of employer abuse.

In short, allow them to complain.

edited 27th May '11 7:02:08 AM by SavageHeathen

They can complain after they get a green card.

Which they can't get, so your point is disingenuous.

No. Abusive employment practices are abusive employment practices, regardless of the victim's citizenship status or any other attribute. The primary motivator for hiring illegals is their willingness to work for lower wages. If we remove that incentive by sufficiently penalizing employers, one of two things will occur. Either wages will increase, and correspondingly, prices; or the companies will go out of business and/or turn to black market channels to get labor.

edited 27th May '11 7:16:11 AM by Fighteer

Or the lobbying gets so intense that the bill is repealed or amended to include more loopholes.