November 27, 2007

Lawyer Julie Pace sues Arizona over e-Verify, suggests filing late to crash system

Julie Pace and David Selden are lawyers with the Arizona firm Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, and they're representing a coalition of business groups fighting against a new Arizona law set to go in effect on January 1. The law would require employers to use the federal e-Verify system to verify the identities of new hires; if they knowingly hire illegal workers their business licenses could be suspended or revoked.

From this:

If the judge upholds the law, lawyers plan to tell employers to sign up en masse during the last two weeks of December, Pace said. The notices will be sent out by e-mail through chambers of commerce and trade associations, she said.

Even if the computer system doesn't crash, the government doesn't have enough manpower to answer all the questions that will be generated as employers try to navigate the system for the first time, she said.

"If you have 100,000 people signing up in December, how are they going to handle it?" Pace asked.

This provides a partial list of those being represented: Arizona Contractors Association, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation and the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association.

This is similar to the fears some had that, under "comprehensive immigration reform", groups would encourage applicants to apply on a specific day of the week or the month in order to swamp the system and push through every application. And, her scheme is only slightly less repugnant than that of the H1-B lawyers featured on this infamous clip.

Posted to Immigration2007b at November 27, 2007 10:20 PM