Arizona Businesses Reject Mandatory E-Verify

"Five years after it took effect and more than year after it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, an Arizona law requiring businesses to check the citizenship of every new hire is often disregarded and rarely enforced.  The Legal Arizona Workers Act mandates every business in the state verify the legal status of new employees against the federal E-Verify database and it lets the state strip licenses of businesses that knowingly hire undocumented workers.  But the Department of Homeland Security reports Arizona businesses used the database just 982,593 times in 2011, even though the Census Bureau said there were 1.5 million new hires in the state that year, which would make for a 66 percent compliance rate. Just 43 percent of Arizona businesses had enrolled in the system as of this month, using data from Homeland Security enrollment figures and Census Bureau statistics on the number of Arizona businesses.  That rate falls to 19 percent for businesses with four or fewer employees, or less than one business in five.  For businesses that chose to ignore the law there is little repercussion: The Arizona attorney general’s office reported only two E-Verify cases since the law took effect in 2008." - Inside Tucson Business, Jan. 4, 2013.