The state’s business community has a message for lawmakers when they return to the Capitol on Thursday to debate solutions to illegal immigration: Don’t turn employers into immigration police.
Republican Gov. Bill Owens called lawmakers back to Denver to discuss a broad agenda of immigration reform that includes cracking down on employers who don’t verify workers’ legal status.
“I believe that employers should accept this relatively simple step of taking reasonable measures to validate the lawful work status of its employees,” Owens wrote in the executive order calling the special session.
But that has prompted business leaders to wonder, “What is reasonable?”
“Obviously, you cannot put business in the position of becoming surrogate or deputized federal agents,” said Joe Blake, president of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins and Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff both said businesses should be held accountable for their hiring practices.
Both men suggested that lawmakers could require employers to verify job applicants’ legal status by using driver’s licenses.
Another idea has employers using a federal database to authenticate an applicant’s Social Security number.
Chuck Berry, president of the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, said the federal database is a pilot program and “isn’t fully operational.”
He said he told legislative leaders last week that his group would oppose any plan that would require employers to use the federal pilot database before hiring employees.
If the database had the ability to allow the nation’s employers to check an applicant’s legal status within 24 to 48 hours, Berry said, “a vast majority of Colorado employers would welcome that.”
Romanoff said he is trying to make policy that deftly navigates several tricky questions:
How should Colorado penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants when federal law prohibits states from leveling civil or criminal penalties against them?
What is the most reliable employee-verification system available?
What consequences should the state impose so employers don’t use a new law “as an excuse to discriminate against applicants who look or sound foreign?” Romanoff said.
“I don’t think it will hurt Colorado to expect employers to comply with the law,” he said. “What hurts Colorado, it seems to me, is a system that forces honest employers to compete against less-than-honest rivals.”
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at 303-820-1633 or cfrates@denverpost.com.
