A. The City Council hereby finds that there has been an ongoing national debate regarding the inherent inequities which exist between employers that comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations in connection with the hiring of their employees and employers that fail to comply with those laws and regulations.
B. The City Council further finds and determines that these inequities result in a financial disadvantage for those employers who comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations in the hiring of their employees while reciprocally providing an unfair financial advantage to those employers who did not comply with the law.
C. The City Council also finds and determines that employer noncompliance with federal, state, and local laws and regulations that regulate the hiring of employees results in diminished protections of employees from unfair labor practices and fosters the circumvention of minimum wage, prevailing wage, and health insurance coverage requirements.
D. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a means of facilitating and encouraging compliance with federal law including, but not limited by enumeration to, the Simpson-Mazoli Act, also known as the Immigration and Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) appearing at 8 U.S.C. 1101, et seq., by requiring businesses to verify that their employees are legally eligible to be employed in the United States, and establishing an enforcement mechanism at the municipal level against non-compliant businesses, which the City Council finds will:
1. Help to promote the federal policy of requiring employers to verify the employment status of potential employees;
2. Help to eliminate unfair competitive advantages between businesses;
3. Help to eliminate unfair labor practices and the exploitation of workers;
4. Help to assure taxpayers that employers and employees are paying their fair share of taxes by complying with tax laws.
(Ord. 12-1086, § 10, passed 10-23-2012)