Bills aim to discourage hiring undocumented workers
The Missouri House on March 26 approved a bill that requires Missouri police officers to ask about the immigration status of arrested suspects.
The executive branch’s frustrations with worker policy have played out in the legislature, too, with no measure clearing the House and Senate by late March.
The House began this year’s debates when its special immigration committee voted last month to recommend passage of House Bill 85, sponsored by Raytown Republican Will Kraus.
Kraus originally proposed fines of up to $250,000 for businesses convicted for a third time of hiring undocumented immigrants. But after opposition to fines was raised in committee, the final version was reduced to a maximum penalty of losing a local business license and state incorporation or registration status.
The legislation said businesses could cite their use of the basic pilot program as a defense against violations,
The House Rules Committee then blocked the bill from floor debate—and Special Immigration Committee Chairman Jerry Nolte has been re-crafting HB 85 before trying to send it to the full chamber for debate.
Nolte said he has sought guidance from the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry and National Federation of Independent Business on how to crack down on businesses that “knowingly” hire unauthorized workers.
“Anybody can be fooled with false documentation,” said Nolte, a Gladstone Republican who owns a commercial graphics operation. “I want to make (the law) as low impact as possible while recognizing that hiring illegal aliens is an unfair business practice.”
On the Senate side, observers expected the focus to shift to Senate Bill 348, sponsored by Harrisonville Republican Chris Koster, which received its public hearing just before the mid-March “spring break” observed by the legislature.
Koster’s legislation comes closer to a comprehensive immigration package, although he has removed his original proposal to bar individuals from renting to or housing illegal aliens. His proposed substitute would:
• Create a criminal offense without direct penalties for hiring undocumented workers. The legislation describes hiring unauthorized workers as an “illegal business practice…a means to exploit others and to gain an advantage over law-abiding competitors.”
• Require private Missouri businesses with less than 10 employees or independent contractors to join the basic pilot program and report those activities to the Department of Revenue. If an employer makes a “material misrepresentation of fact,” the business would lose its ability to deduct the wages of employees and payments to independent contractors as business expenses.
• Require law enforcement officers to verify whether any person who is arrested or jailed is a citizen or resident alien legally in the country. If not, Missouri officers would have to detain the person up to seven days at federal request.
• Prohibit any Missouri city or county from becoming a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
• Create a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security that gives state troopers the power of immigration officers.
• Allow cities and town to outlaw employment of undocumented aliens, impose fines of any amount, seek treble damages against violators and deny business licenses to those employers.
• Prohibit the enrollment of any undocumented immigrants at public colleges and universities.
• Bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any state or local public benefits except emergency medical care, legal services or those guaranteed by federal law.
Nolte’s HB 269, which also bars unauthorized residents from enrolling in public colleges and universities, already has passed the full House and has been assigned to the same Senate committee.