The Idaho Senate is considering a plan that would go after employers for hiring illegal immigrants. The plan from Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, would require employers to check that all new hires are legal workers and penalizes any business that knowingly hires illegal immigrants.
“The only course of action we as a state have is with employers, the people doing the hiring of the illegal immigrants,” Jorgenson said. The Senate State Affairs Committee approved printing Jorgenson’s proposal Friday without dissent. Jorgenson introduced a similar proposal last year that didn’t make it out of the hearing stage, but he said that State Affairs Committee leader Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, has agreed to have a hearing for the plan this session.
Employers would have to use the E-Verify system to check new workers’ legal status. That program is maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Jorgenson said having the plan would lead to self-deportation for some people. “When people know that we have this type of a structure in place, they leave the state (or) they don’t come,” he said. Idaho currently uses E-Verify for all state agencies and state contractors, and Gov. Butch Otter has a website encouraging businesses to voluntarily use the system. E-Verify does have critics: The American Civil Liberties Union has called the system flawed and a roadblock to employment for U.S. workers.
Employers who knowingly hire workers who don’t pass the E-Verify test would be fined $50 a day for each misclassified worker, up to $50,000. Employers’ business license would also be suspended for 15 days for a first offense, one year for a second offense, and permanently for a third offense. The attorney general and county officials would be in charge of enforcing the new requirements and employers would have court hearings before paying the fines.
Some on the Senate panel questioned the cost of the new immigration enforcement plan. Michelle Stennett, who is temporarily serving for her husband, Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum, said she was worried investigations could become a wild goose chase. “It could get bogged down if somebody is disgruntled with their employer or believes something is happening that’s not,” she said. “I don’t think we’d have the resources or the ability if it isn’t nailed down who’s responsible for making these accusations.”
“Disgruntled people unfortunately, and sometimes fortunately, are a part of life,” Jorgenson told Stennett. He said the due process legal system would filter out frivolous complaints. “If someone files a complaint or tries to be an informant, we have to rely on our system.” Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, also wanted more clarification on the cost to run the new program.
Jorgenson said he is still working on determining the cost of enforcing his proposal for counties and the state. He said illegal immigrants cost the state $148 million a year, according to the anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Jorgenson tsaid those state costs come from education, welfare, corrections, and health care. “We have a moral obligation to provide care to anyone who comes into a hospital,” Jorgenson said. “The counties’ budgets have just been eaten up by indigent health care costs.”
The other side in the immigration debate disputes the economic impact of illegal immigrants. A report from the immigrant rights group Immigration Policy Center released this month claims that comprehensive immigration reform, which would give legal status to those currently in the U.S. illegally, would increase the national economy by $1.5 trillion during the next 10 years.
The plan also includes language instructing the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) to not issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. “The state of Idaho hereby declares that granting driver’s licenses to illegal aliens is repugnant,” the proposed legislation reads. ITD would also be required to only give the written driver’s test in English. Currently, ITD requires applicants to prove age, identity, and residence in Idaho. ITD also offers its driver’s manual in Spanish (pdf).
Jorgenson isn’t the only lawmaker proposing immigration reforms this session. Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, is working on legislation that would penalize creating or use false identification to help someone get a job.
There is absolutely no need to scrap the 1986 Immigration Control and Reform law (Pub.L. 99-603, 100 Stat. 3359, signed into law by Ronald Reagan. Just enforce the laws already on the books and add new amendments to the Simpson/Mazzoli bill. The law criminalized the act of–KNOWINGLY–hiring an illegal worker and established fines and other penalties for those employing illegal labor. This was approved under the theory that low prospects for employment using restrictions would reduce illegal immigration. But as we have acknowledged for decades, the laws were never intended to halt cheap labor. Never mind the severe consequences to the average working American, who if not skilled must contend in competing with a cut-price foreigner for a job. Even now with 15 million US Americans unemployed, the administrations want to force through an AMNESTY for people who have scorned our laws, disguised as Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
Washington in 1986 introduced the I-9-form. to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States. But just like most immigration forms, they don’t achieve the enforcement needed? The USCIS Form I-94 or I-95 that a individual gives to an Agent when arriving in the United States at a land border port-of-entry or from an airline or ship is a document that is easily compromised. Even though the arrival has been approved by an USCIS inspector to prove that you arrived in the country legally, their is no efficient way to know that person has left the country. It’s just like E-Verify currently that has been introduced, it doesn’t go far enough. An amendment should be introduced that makes the law MANDATORY, with no business entity slipping through the cracks. Since then the whole system has been corrupted by our own politicians in collusion with certain parasite leaders in the business world. The whole system of legal immigration has become unstable, with far reaching effects on American men and women and those who entered the country legally.
The newspapers and other sources have brainwashed with a number of 12 million illegal immigrants in this nation, but this number is far from the truth. The actual number calculated by the financial institution Bear Stearns is somewhere between 20 and 30 million, which accounts for those entering illegally through our sovereign border, and those people who intentionally overstayed their entry visas. The three major components of immigration control–impediment, detainment and deportation–need to be strengthened by Senate-House and the Executive Branch if effective control is ever to be reestablished. As of today this has never happened or even meant to happen. As long as politicians pander to open border organizations and business lobbyists nothing will ever change. We need to amend the 1986 program to end illegal immigration; that means ensuring that people who enter illegally or overstay their lawful status will not be able to obtain jobs, public entitlement benefits, public education, public housing, or any other taxpayer-funded benefit without detection. E-Verify can achieve this as it modified for use by state, county and local government. Our government already exacts a toll on the Highly skilled US worker, by importing an average of 1.5 million foreign job seekers annually.
EVEN WORSE WITH A MOSTLY LIBERAL SUPREME COURT DENYING UNDER “FREE SPEECH” THAT LOBBYISTS WITH THEIR MONEY CAN CORRUPT OUR GOVERNMENT. THAT EVEN FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS CAN DISTRACT OUR LAWMAKERS WITH MAJOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE UNDER THIS CORPORATE ONSLAUGHT. Simply put, lobbyists can spend millions of dollars in advertising for or against politicians, if they don’t like the way they voted on issues? This means WALL STREET still runs our government. THE PEOPLE’S ONLY CHANCE IS A MANDATORY LAW, THAT ANY SOURCES OF MONEY MUST BE COMPLETELY OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEWING–WITHOUT ANY OPTION.
WE have already seen how our politicians have been manipulated by private enterprise, in slowing down immigration enforcement. Both E-Verify has been compromised with lies, as with the local policing program 287 (G). Even the ICE raids have fallen off somewhat, because of the promise of yet another AMNESTY.
It is now up to public opinion to thwart any chance of AMNESTY, as it means another obstacle in the way of survival for American workers and their families. E-Verify is being improved in the coming months, with less irregularities and less need for an American worker to be in competition for jobs. E-Verify is included in the SAVE ACT and must remain fully funded, so that it inhibits illegal workers. Find more answers for your immigration questions at NUMBERSUSA dot com and JUDICIALWATCH dot org. DEMAND NO MORE AMNESTIES, MAKE E-VERIFY PERMANENT , FULLY FUND 287 (G) FOR LOCAL POLICE AND RESUME EXPANDED ICE RAIDS. Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and asked for your Senator or Congressman. In addition bombard your State Representatives to enforce state laws.
Latest news on illegal Immigration:
A report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal found that illegal aliens receiving dialysis treatment were costing the hospital more than $2 million per month. Nevada taxpayers are forced to pay for a treatment.
A new study commissioned by the Chicago Urban League and the Alternative Schools Network reveals the negative impacts of illegal immigration on low-skilled American workers, specifically teens and young adults.
Perhaps a better title of this article would be “Proposed Legislation could save Idaho Taxpayers $148 million dollars!
Mr. Jorgenson is making sweeping legislative changes for the State of Idaho that need to be done. I applaud his proposals that will provide jobs for U.S. citizens and remove the incentive for everyone to break the law.
Is IdahoReporter hiring progressives to write their headlines?
“Anti-immigration”? How about “anti-ILLEGAL immigration”? Jorgenson’s plan has nothing to do with legal immigrants. The headline reveals the addled progressive stance that there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant.
Also, employing the phrase “penalize employers” makes it sound as though this plan would somehow be unfair to employers instead of justly punishing them for knowingly hiring border-crossing lawbreakers who steal jobs from Americans.
Knock off the advocacy journalism, IdahoReporter or you will lose this reader.
Jim,
We appreciate the criticism. We are doing our best to play it down the middle.
The very first sentence of the story references illegal immigration.
Jorgenson’s plan would fine employers, which is considered a penalty. To quote Jorgenson from the story: “The only course of action we as a state have is with employers, the people doing the hiring of the illegal immigrants.”
Lauri,
That $148 million figure is based on a national organization’s calculations. You can’t find it in a budget line-item like with other headlines that mention dollar amount. That’s why it wasn’t chosen as the headline for the story.
Brad,
I appreciate the change. However, many people simply scan headlines and don’t read the body of the report. Headlines draw readers to the report.
The change of one word radically changes the tenor of the headline. Thanks again.
Jim
[...] anti-illegal immigration legislation in the House State Affairs Committee Tuesday. Much like the plan of his Senate counterpart, Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, Hart’s plan would focus on punishing employers for [...]
[...] click here. To read about the Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, click here. The third piece of legislation seeks to penalize the use of false identification to gain [...]