From the May/June 2007 issue of
Wisconsin Restaurateur Magazine

Two Wisconsin cities announce plans to step into
immigration enforcement
Some Wisconsin municipalities have announced intentions of going after employers who hire undocumented workers, but it is unclear so far how they plan to do it.

by Sonya Bice

Two Wisconsin municipalities, Waukesha and Green Bay, have announced that they are pursuing efforts to get involved in immigration enforcement.
The Green Bay City Council is considering passing an ordinance, which the mayor has said he will support, which would deny city licenses to any business that employs “unauthorized aliens.”

It also provides that violating that condition “shall be a basis for revocation of the license.” The ordinance applies to all licenses listed in three chapters of the municipal code, including restaurant licenses. The proposed ordinance also states that “no license shall be revoked under this ordinance until after a federal determination of an alien’s status is received.”

Waukesha’s police department, the county sheriff, and the county district attorney’s office last year submitted an application for special authorization from the federal authorities to pursue illegal immigrants.

That request was denied and the agencies were told to reapply separately. Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel has said that he will continue to pursue it.

The interest in local enforcement raises concerns for businesses, said Ed Lump, president and CEO of WRA.

“The temptation is to say, if we can stop people from employing immigrants who are here illegally, people will stop coming here illegally,” Lump said. “The problem with that is we don’t have a reliable way of knowing who is illegal.”

At the federal level, the National Restaurant Association is currently fighting a bill in Congress that would penalize employers who hire unauthorized workers if the employer “should have known” that the workers were not legally permitted to work.

“You’re putting employers at risk,” Lump said. “There is a difference between penalizing the operator who hires people without even asking for their documents and penalizing the operator who is doing everything required by the law.”

The dilemma for employers is that there is no reliable verification system.

The Social Security Administration has an Employee Verification Service, a system for checking employee Social Security numbers, but employers are expressly forbidden to use it to screen applicants or to determine employees’ immigration status.

Even when the SSA sends an employer a so-called “no-match letter” indicating that the name and Social Security number submitted by an employee on an I-9 form does not match SSA records, employers are forbidden to construe the letter alone as an indication of the employee’s immigration status.

The letters contain the specific statement: “This letter does not imply that you or your employee intentionally gave the government wrong information about the employee’s name or Social Security number.”

The letter also states that the employer “should not use this letter to take adverse action against an employee . . . doing so could, in fact, violate state and federal law and subject you to legal consequences.”

Federal authorization of local officials to enforce immigration laws has been granted in about a dozen places since 1996, mostly in border states.

However, police in Nashville, Tennessee, were recently granted federal authority to pursue illegal immigrants. The Tennesseean reported that there were no rallies in Nashville on May 1, as there were elsewhere in the country, because of immigrants’ fear of arrest by county law enforcement officials, who initiated deportation proceedings against scores of immigrants in the first week they had the power to do so.

In Milwaukee, thousands rallied at the lakefront for the second year. Lump was among the speakers who addressed the crowd.

“The restaurant industry welcomes hardworking immigrants and we share your frustration with the current dysfunctional immigration system. The National Restaurant Association is working hard every day to make our position clear to the leaders in Washington: Our position is that the restaurant industry supports comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for those who are willing to earn it,” he said.

“We join you in opposing enforcement-only solutions which are short-sighted and fail to realistically address the real life issues.”

In Washington, the NRA is fighting on various fronts to protect the interests of employers. It has submitted comment on proposed changes to federal regulations that would affect employers who receive no-match letters as well as various bills in Congress.

In a recent press release, the National Restaurant Association said it continues to support comprehensive reform that strengthens borders; provides a way for employers to hire from abroad when U.S. workers are not available; creates a program for the undocumented to pay a penalty before earning permanent legal status; and establishes a verification system that is effective, inexpensive and reliable, and does not unfairly penalize employers.

“A rational immigration policy is essential to our industry’s continued growth,” said Peter Kilgore, Association acting interim president and chief executive officer. WR

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This article is reprinted with permission from Wisconsin Restaurateur magazine. Wisconsin Restaurateur is a bimonthly publication of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and is sent to all WRA Members as a member benefit. The magazine keeps members up to date on the latest industry trends.

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