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A bill reduces tax benefits for illegal aliens hirers

JEFFERSON CITY - Businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens would be denied state tax credits under a measure before Missouri's legislature.

The measure's sponsor, Henry Rizzo, D-Kansas City, said his measure goes further than a simple business issue.

"I am going to try to send a message to the bigger companies that if they hire them, they are going to lose incentives in the state of Missouri, besides whatever problem they are going to get with the feds."

Rizzo's plan has been endorsed by one of the state's major business organizations, Associated Industries of Missouri, after Rizzo agreed to restrict the penalties to only cases in which a business knew it was hiring an illegal alien,

If the bill becomes law, it would affect those employ, contract or pay an illegal allien for labor. They would be denied any state-administrated or subsidized tax facilities, including:

* Tax credits

* Tax abatements

* Tax exemptions

* State government loans

An individual or business who accepted any state tax benefit in violation of the bill would be guilty of a misdeanor and would face a fine up three times the amount of the benefit accepted.

Rizzo voiced concern about the flow of illegal inmigrants into Missouri and, he said, the violence he said they cause. "We can not tolerate it anymore," the Italian-American said.

While describing it as a statewide problem, Rizzo cited problems in his own legislative district in Kansas City.

"My problem is that illegals are coming into my district and I am getting a big volume of violent illegals that are causing havic in my area", he said.

"A guy rentered a bungalow in my area. Two days later, the people on the house came back and there was 21 people on the bungalow, all illegals, and they destroyed the house."

But not all illegal immigrants agree.

Antonio Guerrero is a Mexican inmigrant who is recovering from a traffic accident in Columbia. He said he was working illegally for a month collecting strawberries and blackberries at a farm in the state of Washington.

He now is awaiting trial for the traffic accident.

Guerrero, who said he wants to return to Mexico, said he thinks the bill is unfair.

Rizzo's bill has cleared the House by an overwhelming margin and now is awaiting Senate committee review.