Business Owners & Illegal Immigration
In his comments on tomorrow's visit by the president of Mexico, Governor Schwarzenegger expressed skepticism about current proposals to crack down on business owners who hire workers who are not legally in the United States.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved a plan that would toughen the penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
This afternoon, I asked the governor what he thinks of such proposals, and what role the business community should play in this issue?
If there is a role, Schwarzenegger didn't mention it. In fact, he was critical of such proposals.
Here's his answer, in its entirety:
"You can't really make the businesses become the law enforcement agency, and become the experts. Because there are so many people that have falsified documents, they've falsified driver's licenses, they've falsified Social Security numbers, they've falsified birth certificates, and so on.
So how does someone that is an owner of a business know if those documents are real or not? And then all of a sudden, they find out they have illegal immigrants working for them. And they get arrested, or they get punished, or they get sued and all this.
"So it's very odd. We have to come up with a more comprehensive system, rather than just one idea."
