Employers and Undocumented Employees

            Fox News Latino published an article entitled, "High Court Mulling Law Punishing Employers Who Hire Undocumented" which explores whether or not businesses can have their licenses taken away if they knowingly hire undocumented workers. There was a hearing last Wednesday regarding the issue, but, according to the article, "the U.S. Supreme Courth is not expected to render a decision before summer" (2010). At the most recent hearing it was argued by Arizona and Justice Antonin Scalia that enforcement of immigration law has been left to individual states, as the federal government has failed to do so. Businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants in Arizona are faced with a law that threatens to take away their licenses, according to this article, the hearing Wednesday made it seem as though justices would be following Arizona's suit.
         The law that threatens business licenses in Arizona was signed in 2007 by Democrat Janet Napolitano who at the time was Arizona's governor and is now the Homeland Security secretary of the administration. The law "was intended to diminish Arizona's role as the nation's hub for immigrant smuggling by requiring employers to verify the eligibility of new workers through a federal database. Employers convicted of violating the law can have their business licenses suspended or revoked" (2010).
         Reading about the debate regarding this law and a possible federal law is interesting as Congress does want to put forth measures to prevent employers from hiring illegal workers, but they also, according to this article, want "to be sure that people who are in the United States legally are not discriminated against because they may speak with an accent of look like they might be immigrants" (2010).
       In the end, I think the whole issue is quite tricky; it seems unfair that illegal immigrants are the people who will be punished if a business is raided, while the employer often escapes even a "slap on the wrist". Many of the employers that hire these workers do so because they can pay them less than minimum wage; they are the ones who ought to be punished.