Proposition 202 – Stop Illegal Hiring
Proposition 202 – Stop Illegal Hiring takes the cake in the unscrupulous department with its deceptive title.
The Maricopa County Republican Party recently voted in favor of a resolution against Proposition 202, with District 7 Chair Cheryl Pietkiewicz as the only member of the entire body voting against it.
Urging citizens to vote against the measure, the resolution states, “The same parties who failed to destroy the Legal Arizona Workers Act through court actions and legislative amendments are now attempting to destroy this already existing law through an initiative deceitfully called ‘Stop Illegal Hiring.’ They are attempting to convince the voter that we do not already have in place the most effective illegal hiring law in the nation. Their
Prop. 202 would be more accurately described as the ‘Employer Amnesty Act.’
“If passed, this proposition would nullify our current Employer Sanctions Law and set us back on the path of cultural corruption ...”
The ballot measure would have the exact opposite effect of what its name implies by requiring Arizona to wait until the federal government has taken action before it may act and eliminating numerous provisions of the current law by exempting thousands of Arizona employers; eliminating the silent witness provision and making it criminal offense if a citizen complaint is determined to be unfounded or frivolous; exempting high level management; and returning E-Verify back to voluntary program allow for the continued use of the I-9 employment eligibility system, which U.S. District Judge Neil Wake noted has been undermined by fraud — both document fraud and identity fraud.
Wake also pointed out that as a result of the failure of the I-9 system an estimated 7.2 million unauthorized workers were in the U.S. labor force in March 2005, representing about 5 percent of the labor force. Since then, the unauthorized resident alien population has grown by more than 500,000 per year.
Quoting the director of immigration policy for Plaintiff U.S. Chamber of Commerce from his testimony before Congress last June, Wake wrote, “Current immigration laws are severely flawed and have failed to curb the flow of undocumented workers into the U.S.”
Attorney Andrew Pacheco, who drafted the language and ran against County Attorney Andrew Thomas in 2004, submitted a pro statement, claiming the measure ensures a fair complaint process, protects law-abiding businesses and doesn’t “mandate the use of flawed databases and directs all fines collected to schools and hospitals, where the effects of illegal immigration are great.”
What Pacheco refers to as flawed databases have since proven to be 99.5 percent accurate.
Also supporting the measure is Mac Magruder, WESTMARC, Arizona Farm Bureau and AnnaMarie Knorr of Phoenix who states, “The labor market remains tight, especially for employers seeking low-skilled employees,” claiming the measure provides “protections for legitimate employers to ensure that they can do business unencumbered.”
It turns out Knorr is a registered Arizona Lobbyist for Western Growers Association.