By Regan McCarthy
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-967074.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Senate bill 2040 as amended by Senator J.D. Alexander of Lake Wales requires those hiring for state agencies use the electronic system to check a potential employees' status. The option is left open for private businesses. Senator John Thrasher of Jacksonville wanted the measure to be more extensive providing incentive for employers to use the e-verify system. His proposal would include a fine for employers who don't use the system and are reported hiring undocumented workers.
But Senator Alexander says the process is costly. Alexander runs a produce business himself and says his company uses the system for each new hire he makes. But he says it takes some time to hear back from the government in cases of undocumented individuals.
"And by the way you've gone through the full induction of that employee. You've done all the preliminary up front training and you've begun the training to get that employee integrated into your operations. And by the way that costs a fair amount of money.
Alexander says state legislators are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
"It's easy to talk you know down at the post office, at the bar, you know you ought to do this thing, but when you start looking in these people's eyes and understand they're people that live and breathe just like us I think you all need to think about this very carefully."
Those in support of the bill, such as Senator Thad Altman of Melbourne, say the rule will help to decrease the state's unemployment rate, but Alexander argues against that saying right now he doesn't have enough workers to pick his blueberry crop. Alexander says he pays 5-dollars per bucket of blueberries. The average person picks about 30-buckets a day. It's a job he says American workers won't take.
"We finished up this week, but we were short about a third of the folks that we needed to get that crop in. And we lost crop because of it. We had berries that were over-ripe."
Alexander says if everyone uses e-verify he's worried there won't be enough available workers to keep crops from expiring in the fields. He says he's pained the Federal Government hasn't been able to fix the issue of illegal immigration saying the tools given to the states are "fundamentally flawed." Alexander says he thinks its "stone cold wrong" to illegally cross the border, but he doesn't blame the undocumented people here now.
"The Federal government should stop it without a doubt. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about people who with a wink and a nod from the Federal government for decades in some cases have been here working, building trying to send their kids to school."
Another major concern surrounding a bill requiring the use of e-verify is the lack of protection for individual employers such as home-owners who hire a house-cleaner or parents hiring babysitters. Thrasher says under his bill any employer found hiring undocumented individuals could be fined. But Senator Don Gaetz from Destin says no government officials will be tasked with investigating individuals.
"There's no army of investigators that are going out looking into anybody's private lives. This is simply a way to make sure that all of us that hire employees would have the opportunity to know whether or not we've hired somebody that has legal status."
Senator Arthenia Joyner of Tampa raised another concern saying the state requires businesses using e-verify to sign a memorandum of understanding.
The bill also specifies law enforcement officers must check the status of an individual booked in jail, but allows for those charged for non-violent offenses to be turned over to the Federal government for deportation without first finishing their sentence. The law does not follow the example of the House bill which criminalizes living in the state as an undocumented individual and allows police to check the status of any individual under investigation.
Immigrants and Immigrant advocate groups have been working at the statehouse for months -many of them staying for weeks at a time-- in an effort to keep the bill from going to a vote. Protesters voiced concerns yesterday that Republican Senate President Mike Haridopolos would change rules in the bill making it more similar to the Arizona immigration law. Ron Bilbao joined bus loads people protesting. Bilbao, a member of the American Civil liberty Union, says any anti-immigration bill coming out of the legislature would be a vehicle for racial profiling which he thinks would be repealed.
"Two federal judges have upheld enjoining the law because it may lead to racial profiling and also because it oversteps the Federal government's immigration enforcement policy so the state's shouldn't be doing it"
Haridopolos says the Senate's bill will not be a reflection of the Arizona immigration law. Those who aren't breaking the law, he says, will have nothing to worry about. Thrasher's amendment failed. Alexander's amendment passed. The bill moves to third reading.