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Law carries a risk of discrimination, AZHCC worries

The Legal Arizona Workers law has some people on edge about discrimination against Hispanic job applicants.

The concern is that some employers among the state’s 130,000 businesses will shy away from hiring job seekers who look and sound like commonly held Hispanic stereotypes.

“This law would lead to discrimination and racial profiling against Latinos,” says Harry Garewal, executive director of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Under the new law, employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers face license suspension on a first offense, and lose their business licenses if caught a second time. The law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2008.

In addition, companies will use an online government database to verify if an applicant is legal. However, that system is known to have a four percent error rate.

Gov. Janet Napolitano, who signed the bill into law, was worried enough about discrimination that she wrote a letter to Jim Wiers, Speaker of the House, to express her fear.

“The bill lacks an antidiscrimination clause to ensure that it is enforced in a fair and non-discriminatory manner,” she wrote.

At LPM press time, she promised to call a special session of the Legislature to fix “problems” in the new law.

She also pledged to direct the state Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division to actively educate employers on how to hire without discriminating, and to “aggressively” prosecute cases of discrimination that occur.

Andrew Thomas, Maricopa County Attorney, and the state Attorney General Terry Goddard will be responsible for weeding out job discrimination in Maricopa County. Both have promised to be on watch for discrimination incidents.

“Somebody is not immediately considered a suspect if they happen to speak in a Spanish accent or have a skin color that is darker than everyone else,” Goddard told The Arizona Republic.