Group wants citizen-check system for AZ

By Ann McBride
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 29, 1996

PHOENIX - If Dan Dahlstedt has his way, Arizona businesses will be required to verify employees' citizenship status through a state-run toll-free telephone number.

The Scottsdale businessman heads the Save Our State-Arizona Immigration Reform Committee, an off-shoot of the committee that started California's immigration reform measure, Proposition 187.

The Arizona group plans to hold an initiative drive this spring to get the "insta-check" concept placed on the November ballot.

Dahlstedt, who owns a mail-order contact lens company, said he was approached by former Arizonan and friend Wirt Morten to chair the controversial group. Morten works for a California consulting firm with Ron Prince, the founder and chairman of the Proposition 187 initiative.

Proposition 187 passed in 1994 but parts of it were later ruled unconstitutional and remain tied up in the courts.

Dahlstedt said the Arizona initiative would not include any of California's provisions to bar education and other social and medical services from illegal immigrants because these measures are not needed in Arizona.

About 25 people attended the group's first meeting in Phoenix on Saturday. Dahlstedt said the group decided it would include only the 1-800 telephone verification issue on the initiative.

The Save Our State-Arizona Immigration Reform Committee is required to file an application for initiative with the Secretary of State's office. The group must collect 112,961 signatures by July 3 for the initiative to get on the ballot.

Dahlstedt said during an interview last week that he envisions the citizen-check system operating similarly to the Department of Public Safety's Handgun Clearance Center.

The Handgun Clearance Center, which was established after Congress passed the 1994 Brady Bill, is staffed by 10 identification clerks and has an annual budget of $350,000. The center is open every day for gun dealers to verify information on people wanting to buy a gun. A spokesperson for the center said the background checks are done immediately by telephone or within 10 minutes by fax.

Dahlstedt said his solution would stop immigrants from using counterfeit social security cards and driver licenses to get jobs. Not only would it solve the illegal immigrant problem, it would also help catch criminals and deadbeat dads, he said.

Every employer would be required to run the same check on all employees, he said, and those people who do not have driver licenses or green cards would need to get state-issued identification cards.

Dahlstedt said 14 states, including California, are considering proposing a similar initiative this fall. He said if Arizona were to pass it, he is confident the rest of the country would soon follow.

Dahlstedt said telephone verification would solve the illegal immigrant problem and force employers to stop hiring illegal immigrants at "slave" wages. He repeatedly said the measure was not a racist issue, but an economic issue. The illegal immigrant problem is contributing to the country's enormous debt, and the United States can no longer afford to support those here illegally, he said.

Dahlstedt said there are people here illegally from many other countries besides Mexico.

"It is not a brown problem. It is an illegal problem," he said. "This country is going broke ... it used to be a melting pot, now it's a free welfare state."

Government leaders remain suspect of the Arizona Immigration Reform committee and are taking a "wait and see" approach.

The Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and the Attorney General's Office said it was too soon to make a statement because they would need to see exactly what the 100-word initiative says.

House Rep. Ruben Ortega, D-Huachuca City, said he did not see any harm in making it easier for employers to verify citizenship as long as the same check was run on all employees.

Rep. Joe Eddie Lopez, D-Phoenix, said he was concerned with a 5 to 25 percent error rate in data banks and he would not want that to be the employers' only option. Lopez also disagrees with the group in terms of the severity of the problem, and he would like to see the issue studied in more depth.

However, Lopez said he thought such a measure would gather a great amount of support in the Legislature because society has grown increasingly xenophobic and is imagining problems where they do not exist.

Dahlstedt said he expects opposition to the measure from citrus growers and businesses involved in manufacturing.

"It has nothing to do with racism. It has to do with 'I want to be able to hire a worker for $3 and $4 an hour,'" he said.

"My whole point is, let's put everyone on an equal playing field and if we do have laws out there let's enforce them. It doesn't come down to an us versus them. It comes down to America is going broke. It isn't meant to be mean."

Sandra Ferniza, executive director of the Phoenix Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, doesn't see it that way. She said the measure would put an unnecessary burden on employers to serve as immigration enforcement officers.

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