In Oklahoma, chambers of commerce went to federal court and last month won an order suspending sections of a 2007 state law that would require employers to use a federal database to check the immigration status of new hires. In California, businesses have turned to elected officials, including the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, to lobby federal immigration authorities against raiding long-established companies.
While much of the employer activity has been at the grass-roots level, a national federation has been created to bring together the local and state business groups that have sprung up over the last year.
“These employers are now starting to realize that nobody is in a better position than they are to make the case that they do need the workers and they do want to be on the right side of the law,” said Tamar Jacoby, president of the new federation, ImmigrationWorks USA.
After years of laissez-faire enforcement, federal immigration agents have been conducting raids at a brisk pace, with 4,940 arrests in workplaces last year.
The words “Republican” and “Business” have for many years now been synonymous in voters minds, but is there a shift at hand? In many states, the GOP has drawn an increasingly harder line on immigration to win over voters while simultaneously catering to the lobby power of businesses within state legislative bodies. As employers feel the pinch of tough immigration policy and increased crackdown on work visas, etc., this story shows they are willing to organize and fight back against the party that has for so long (at least in word if not always action) championed the business owner as an icon of capitalism and the American dream.
-Jason
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