Arizonans Say No to Prop 202 and Yes to Continued Employee Eligibility Verification as a Tool for Immigration Reform

WASHINGTON , Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- By rejecting Proposition 202, Arizonans sent a message that they will not be fooled by special interests into scrapping the state's best instrument to fight illegal immigration. Arizona ballot initiative Prop 202 has been defeated, thus leaving in place the state's groundbreaking worksite employment verification laws. Astute voters recognized that Prop 202, deceptively labeled as the Stop Illegal Hiring Act and aggressively promoted by business interests, would have actually increased the hiring of illegal aliens as it dismantled Arizona's mandatory use of E-Verify.

At the beginning of 2008, Arizona chose to make E-Verify mandatory for all new hires. Managed by the DHS, E-Verify allows employers to use an automated internet-based system to check new hire's information against more than 500 million records in Social Security and Homeland Security databases. The program is 99.5% accurate and so popular that over 1000 businesses nationwide sign up every week. The defeat of Prop 202 allows Arizona to continue to participate in the nation's basic worksite employment verification system - a fair, practical and highly effective tool to reduce the incidence of illegal aliens entering the workforce.

"The mandatory use of E-Verify in Arizona is helping break business's addiction to an illegal-alien, low-wage workforce," said Dan Stein , President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "Their dependence on cheap labor and their fear of losing it led to desperate measures. They fraudulently told the public that Prop 202 would prevent illegal aliens from being hired when it would have done exactly the opposite. These tactics are proof that E-Verify is working as it should and giving Arizona residents the protections they deserve. Arizona voters are to be congratulated for keeping themselves informed and voting responsibly."

About FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest and oldest immigration reform group. With over 250,000 members nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform