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INDIANAPOLIS – A measure to crack down on businesses that employ illegal workers is teetering on the brink of failure.
The illegal immigration language – which exists in different forms in Senate Bill 345 and House Bill 1219 – has had no action in several weeks.
Both bills are in the conference committee process in which lawmakers try to work out a compromise. But there have been no hearings on either bill, and legislative leadership is focused on property tax change in the remaining four days of session.
That’s why Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, and Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Terre Haute, conducted a news conference Monday, urging constituents to call their lawmakers and push for the passage of an immigration bill
The two were authors on the original measure, which died in the House though the language was inserted into other vehicles.
They even offered a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the legislation. But because neither one is a conferee on the bill, they lack the authority to make such a compromise happen.
And although they wouldn’t say the immigration bill was in trouble, they acknowledged that a large lobbying effort from business groups has lined up against it.
“The people who want to kill this bill are those profiting from cheap labor,” Delph said.
The components of their agreement include restoring criminal penalties that were originally in the Senate bill for transporting, shielding from detection, concealing or harboring an illegal immigrant for commercial or financial gain.
It also would restore Senate language terminating public contracts if contractors or subcontractors knowingly employ illegal immigrants.
It would retain the core of the bill – a three-strikes-you’re-out provision that allows an administrative law judge to yank a company’s license to do business in the state if they knowingly hire illegal immigrants three separate times.
But instead of a five- or 10-year time frame for these sanctions, the two agreed on seven years.
Their agreement also would keep language requiring the Indiana State Police superintendent to enter into an agreement with the federal government for a pilot project for the training and enforcement of federal immigration and customs laws.
“I think it’s a great starting point for us in dealing with the illegal worker problem,” Tincher said.
Although both lawmakers said their legislative leaders have been supportive of the measure this session, House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, refused to assign conferees Monday and said he would prefer if the Senate just accept the House changes and move on.
Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said they disagree with too many things in the current version of the bill but also acknowledged it is not his first priority.
“The No. 1 bill and the only bill that matters in the end is property taxes,” he said. “Our job is to get property tax reform finished.”
nkelly@jg.net
