Illegal-worker law may be difficult to implement
Sunday, November 30, 2008 12:04 AM PST
By Cheryll A. Borgaard
Printable version
E-mail this articleJeff Rogers spent 21 years in the Air Force, working in military intelligence.
Yet the Arkansas native doubts he could pass muster under Columbia County’s new voter-approved law requiring employers to check new hires’ immigration status. A record-keeping discrepancy between his birth date and social security number would certainly come up, he said.
“I would come up as a mismatch,” said Rogers, 55.
If the law creates problems for such a dyed-in the-wool American citizen, just imagine the problems that lie in store for anyone with a foreign accent, a green card or questionable documentation, said Rogers.
Indeed, critics and public officials say Measure 5-190 is fraught with enforcement challenges and political and legal land mines. But they and the measure’s backers agree on one thing: It reflects the public’s growing frustration with the federal government’s inability to deal with illegal immigration.
In the Nov. 4 general election, 57 percent of Columbia County voters approved 5-190, which calls for fining employers who knowlingly hire illegal immigrants.
Contractors could be fined $10,000. Other businesses could lose their licenses or other work-related permits. The measure requires all county employers to use E-verify, a free online federal program that checks employment eligibility.
“I don’t think I’d make it through E-Verify,” said Rogers, a past board member of Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity, a group that opposed 5-190.
Rogers learned of the snafu when he went to file his federal taxes electronically this year, and the system kept kicking him out.
“Somewhere along the way, my birthdate got changed and it didn’t match up with my Social Security number,” he said. “You’d think with all my years in the military, they’d have me right.”
“You just need one digit wrong, and someone is no longer documentable,” said Marcy Westerling, a member of Rural Organizing Project, a grassroots human rights organization, which also opposed the measure. “We don’t have good systems in place to look at everyone’s paperwork. It just means that an employer is going to look twice at someone who might be hard to track. (The measure) is racial profiling, pure and simple.”
Arizona model
St. Helens, Ore., contractor Wayne Mayo wrote Measure 5-190, using Arizona’s Legal Arizona Workers Act as his model.
But some of the language in his measure was inconsistent and had “numerous legal flaws and ... unlikely to survive a legal challenge,” Columbia County Counsel Sarah Hanson wrote to the commissioners in September.
Since then, the county has crafted an ordinance to implement 5-190 and submitted it to Columbia County Circuit Court for review. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 22. Hanson recommended this action as a way of trying to limit the county’s potential legal exposure — and cost.
Mayo claims “there aren’t any legal problems” with his measure and that county officials are just dragging their feet to make his measure law. But Columbia County Commissioner Tony Hyde said he and fellow commissioners are “trying to do the voters’ wishes.”
“Our first commitment is that we now have a clear edict to make this work, so we tried to put together an implementable plan,” Hyde said.
Westerling, of Scappoose, said even as re-crafted by the county, the measure is not agreeable to her or her group.
“What they are doing is taking the incredibly poor writing of the author and fixing it,” she said. “it’s kind of like cleaning up the first-grader’s home work. We don’t want any clean-up of something that is so morally flawed. This is not a step in the right direction.”
Inevitable lawsuits
If the Circuit Court upholds the measure to be valid, lawsuits are inevitable, opponents say. The Arizona measure on which Mayo based 5-190 has been subjected to an extensive legal battle still working its way through the federal courts.
“Yes, we’ll definitely file a lawsuit,” Westerling said. “We’re 100 percent sure.”
And the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said it’s reviewing the Columbia County law to determine whether to challenge it.
“It’s clear many Americans are frustrated by the failure of the federal government to effectively address immigration issues,” said Brian Willoughby, ACLU communications director. “But creating poorly written laws that would have local governments attempting to become federal enforcement agents is not the answer.”
It is that failure that drove Mayo to draft his measure in the first place, he said.
“All my friends who had decent-sized subcontracting crews — concrete, roofing, framing — with high-waged employees, they’re losing jobs because they can’t compete with illegal crews,” Mayo said. “My motivation was I didn’t see any help coming soon because of presidential policies; that means hardly any relief from the federal government. Small communities need to say, ‘Hell, no, we’re done.’ ”
Though Hyde wouldn’t say whether he agreed or disagreed with the measure, he shares Mayo’s feelings about the federal government’s lack of action.
“It has raised the issue in Columbia County that citizens are speaking of general unrest around the nation,” Hyde said. “I think this is a good opportunity to say, hey, let our Congress know that this is such a compelling issue. Adding a fence around our country is not going to take care of it.”
Westerling, too, recognizes the issue is of national concern.
“Our government’s lack of leadership with regards to immigration, workers’ rights and the economy has created fertile grounds for divisive politics and the scapegoating of immigrants,” she said on the Columbia County Citizens for Human Dignity’s Web site.
Until Columbia County’s ordinanance based on 5-190 is cleared by circuit court, the county and business leaders are urging business owners to sit tight and take no immediate action, especially any that could be viewed as discriminatory.
“I believe there is a risk that employers will feel pressured to discharge their immigrant workers because of the passage of the measure,” said Meg Heaton, a lawyer with Portland-based Northwest Workers’ Justice Project. “If they do, they may be violating federal immigration law and civil rights law.”
Gondolapete wrote on Nov 30, 2008 12:26 AM:
Resident wrote on Nov 30, 2008 6:15 AM:
US CITIZEN wrote on Nov 30, 2008 7:07 AM:
concerned wrote on Nov 30, 2008 8:15 AM:
viper wrote on Nov 30, 2008 8:48 AM:
Roudyruss wrote on Nov 30, 2008 9:32 AM:
Diesel wrote on Nov 30, 2008 9:34 AM:
cynic954 wrote on Nov 30, 2008 9:35 AM:
howardhudson wrote on Nov 30, 2008 12:01 PM:
It's ridiculous in the extreme to think this measure will help Columbia County deal with a Federal problem. And for a county that is already short of cash to spend money on this just adds to the ridiculousness.
It's racism, pure & simple. How about a measure that legalizes immigrant statuses? It would achieve the same effect (no unfair advantage for certain contractors) and be equally useless. "
Raven wrote on Nov 30, 2008 12:54 PM:
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Simple Man wrote on Nov 30, 2008 1:07 PM:
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