Anti-Immigrant Laws Damage Arizona’s Economy

Alex Nowrasteh, guest commentary in East Valley Tribune:

Arizona’s immigration laws — Senate Bill 1070 and the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) — were designed to drive undocumented immigrants out of the state by levying punishments on Arizona businesses that hire undocumented immigrants.

The laws seem to have accomplished this immediate goal, but they have done so at the expense of Arizona’s economic recovery. . . .

LAWA, known as the “Employer Sanctions Law,” forced Arizona businesses to verify the legal work status of all employees through an expensive and abysmally inefficient federal database called E-Verify. SB 1070 created more problems by strengthening the E-Verify provision of LAWA that enhances the business “death penalty” in Arizona. For a second offense of knowingly or intentionally hiring undocumented immigrants, businesses lose their operating licenses.

The system is a huge time waster for small businesses, especially those that cannot afford a full-time human resources staff to correct problems.

Mike Castillo, a small business owner in Scottsdale, is a perfect example. He wanted to hire a part-time employee in 2010. A technical glitch in E-Verify made it difficult to file the necessary information, so Castillo had to solve the problem himself. This forced him to spend precious time away from his core responsibility — running his business.

E-Verify creates problems for larger companies too. MCL Enterprises, which owns 24 Burger King restaurants in Arizona, reported that more than 14 percent of its employees — including 75 percent of foreign-born workers — were initially deemed unauthorized to work in the United States by E-Verify. Those workers were later cleared for legal employment by federal agencies after great company expense and time.

Why should we care? Because more than two-thirds of economic activity in the United States comes from the small business community. The last thing we need to do, especially in this poor economic climate, is add to the day-to-day burdens of already overtasked small companies. Read more…

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