Latest news with #Mickelsen
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP Rep's Farms Raided By ICE After She Says She Became 'Target' Of Far Right
An Idaho Republican is speaking out after a local party official boasted online about reporting her family's farming business to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen told KTVB in an article published on Monday that she is 'one of the few that have stood up to the far right extremism' and because of that, she has become a target. Mickelsen is listed online as the CFO for her family's potato farming business. She maintained in an op-ed for the Idaho Statesmen that the business complies with all 'applicable federal and state laws' regarding employment and immigration. However, she said she became 'the target of intimidation tactics designed to silence ' her when Ryan Spoon, Ada County GOP vice chairman, announced Jan. 21 on X that he was reporting her businesses to ICE. 'Attention, Mr. Homan, could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho State Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen?' Spoon wrote on X, referring to President Donald Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan. 'She has been bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ. Here is a list of the businesses to raid,' he continued, linking to an 'about' page on Mickelsen's political website. In a follow-up post, he wrote that he was 'filling out' ICE tip forms for 'all of Rep. Mickelsen's businesses.' ICE showed up at Mickelsen Farms three days later, Mickelsen told Investigate West. One immigrant worker employed there was detained by ICE as of Jan. 27, according to the news outlet. Mickelsen said that the man was detained because of a criminal record, and she did not know his immigration status. The lawmaker did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost. Spoon told HuffPost that he really did report Mickelsen's family business to ICE. 'I reported her to ICE, because she bragged about hiring illegals,' he said in an email. He also told Investigate West that Mickelsen's 'own testimony drew attention to herself.' That testimony, he told HuffPost, was when Mickelsen spoke out against a bill that would let local law enforcement detain and possibly deport undocumented immigrants. (Mickelsen ultimately voted for the bill, which has yet to pass the state Senate.) Spoon pointed to video of Mickelsen's testimony posted by political group Stop Idaho RINOs. RINO is an acronym used to mean 'Republican in name only.' 'I think everybody needs to be aware that when we keep going down this road of attacking illegal immigrants, you're mainly attacking Hispanics in this case,' she said in the clip. She continued, 'If you guys think you haven't been touched by an illegal immigrant's hands in some way, through either your traveling or your food, you're kidding yourselves.' Spoon also told HuffPost that his actions 'had nothing to do' with political rivalry. 'She lives on the opposite side of the state from me. There is no position for which she would be my 'rival.'' Mickelsen said Spoon targeting her business represents a broader issue. 'These attacks aren't just about me,' Mickelsen wrote in her op-ed. 'They represent a dangerous shift in our political discourse. When elected officials can be bullied into silence because of false statements and threats to their livelihoods and safety, we all lose.' Millions Of Voters Risk Disenfranchisement Under Republican Proposal 'Huge Screwup': Republicans Give Group Chat Breach A Thumbs Down Emoji Former Utah Rep. Mia Love, The First Black Republican Woman Elected To The U.S. House, Has Died
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Idaho House passes Water Resources budget with $30M for infrastructure projects
The Idaho State Capitol rotunda is pictured in this Jan. 23, 2024, photo. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho House of Representatives voted 56-13 on Thursday to pass the Idaho Department of Water Resources budget with $30 million in new funding for water infrastructure projects. Idaho water issues came to a head last May when the Idaho Department of Water Resources director issued a curtailment order requiring 6,400 junior water rights holders who pump off the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer to shut off their water in order to protect senior water rights holders from a forecasted shortfall. The curtailment order was in place for about three weeks until the two sides reached an agreement that resolved the issue for 2024. The two sides then continued negotiations until the Surface Water Coalition and Idaho Groundwater Association reached a long-term settlement agreement last fall. Then, in conjunction with his Jan. 6 State of the State address, Idaho Gov. Brad Little called for spending $30 million on water projects to increase water levels in the aquifer and support the settlement agreement. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The $30 million was included in House Bill 445, the fiscal year 2026 budget enhancements for the Idaho Department of Water Resources, which the Idaho House took up Thursday. Several legislators stood up on the House floor and made passionate speeches in favor of approving the funding and the budget. 'Water is the lifeblood of our state,' Rep. David Cannon, R-Blackfoot, said. 'Water is the lifeblood of my legislative district. There is no more urgent issue in the immediate term or in the medium term or in the long term to the state of Idaho than water. And in my view, House Bill 445, is one of the most important bills to come through this session. And I urge unity. I urge the state to join together on this issue for the betterment of Idaho and for the protection of Idaho water going forward.' Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, an Idaho Falls Republican and chair of the Idaho Ground Water Appropriators, said there are more water projects than there is money to go around, and many projects take multiple years to complete. But Mickelsen said legislators have a responsibility to protect water resources. She described investments in water projects as investments in the state's overall economy. 'I had ancestors that came and dug the very beginning of the canals in Taylor, Idaho,' Mickelsen said. 'And now I sit here and I look and we're not going to sacrifice anything to keep these waterways and this aquifer healthy? We could have the problems of the Ogallala (Aquifer) that are in Nebraska and Kansas, and they are a declining resource that they may not be able to save. The lucky thing for Idaho is we have plenty of water, but we have to make the investment to protect the resource that we have.' Not every legislator agreed with spending the money, however. CONTACT US 'I understand the importance of water in our state,' Rep. David Leavitt, R-Idaho Falls, said. 'It is the lifeblood of our state. It's what makes everything function, every single industry. But the reality is this is $30 million. This is a massive amount of money. And with this money, we don't know where it's going to be spent.' Several legislators pushed back, saying it is not true that the state doesn't know where the money is going or what the projects are for. Page 2 of the bill, beginning on line 38, states projects shall prioritize aquifer recharge, groundwater management, development and rehabilitation of water storage and conveyance systems, including reservoirs, diversion structures, pipelines and canals, water supply and delivery improvements that enhance efficiency and conservation, emergency water repairs and upgrades to ensure the reliance of vital water systems. Additionally, Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, passed out documents to all legislators Thursday outlining specific water projects. 'That's why I handed out the list of projects – so you all can see this is not a secret,' Horman said. 'If you're not knowing what these projects are, it's only because you're not looking. Here they are!' After a passionate, hourlong debate the Idaho House voted 56-13 to pass the budget with the $30 million for water projects. House Bill 445 heads next to the Idaho Senate for consideration. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Right-wing Idaho activist targets Republican legislator with calls for ICE raids
Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, listens to proceedings during the House State Affairs Committee on March 10, 2025, at the Idaho Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) This story was first published by InvestigateWest on March 26, 2025. President Donald Trump's second term was only in its second day when Ryan Spoon — vice chair of the local Republican Party apparatus in Idaho's Ada County — turned the force of the federal government against a political enemy. 'Could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelson?' he wrote in an X post, misspelling Mickelsen's last name and tagging Trump's border czar Tom Homan. 'She has been bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ.' As his social media posts about contacting ICE began to rack up more than 2,000 shares, Spoon stressed that simply sharing on social media wasn't enough. He was officially reporting Mickelsen's farming businesses to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and website. 'You can report her, too!' he wrote in a post festooned with flexing muscle and American flag emojis. Three days later, Mickelsen said, ICE agents appeared at Mickelsen Farms, where a slew of varieties of commercial and seed potatoes grow across thousands of acres in southeastern Idaho. 'They just showed up out of the blue Friday morning,' said Mickelsen, a moderate Republican legislator and the former director for the Idaho Farm Bureau, a lobbying group for the agriculture industry. By Jan. 27, just one week into the second Trump administration, a Mickelsen Farms employee had been arrested by ICE. Records reviewed by InvestigateWest show that a Mexican immigrant who listed his employer as Mickelsen Farms on his Facebook page was being held at a Nevada Southern Detention Center in Las Vegas. As the Trump administration attempts to carry out its campaign promise of mass deportations, it's promoted the official ICE tip line as a vital part of its strategy. The phone tip line was so overwhelmed the day after Trump's inauguration, Spoon wrote on X, that he hung up and submitted a tip on the ICE website instead. Some on the right have wielded threats of ICE reports as kind of a gloating taunt — a way of rubbing Trump's election in the faces of illegal immigrants and anyone who supports them. A postcard sent to a Californian immigration nonprofit, for example, touted the ICE tip line with the words 'Have your bags packed — Trump's coming' written on the return address line. But Spoon targeting a Republican state legislator by calling up ICE is particularly noteworthy – and all the more so because ICE responded within days. 'It's so ripe for abuse,' Chris Thomas, a Colorado-based attorney with 28 years of experience practicing immigration law, said about the use of the federal tip line. 'We've got the government under enormous pressure to respond to every tip they receive. … It's just very clear that at all levels, this is a full assault on undocumented people in the country.' Spoon, who moved to Boise from San Francisco in 2019 to work remotely as a loss prevention specialist, and Mickelson, a state legislator who is one of the biggest potato producers in southeast Idaho, are on opposite ends of the state's Republican Party. And immigration is a particularly incendiary flashpoint: Mickelsen argues migrants are an essential part of the agricultural economy, while Spoon portrays both illegal immigrants and legal refugees as a sinister foreign invasion force. Mickelsen had beaten back attempts by the hard right to defeat her in a primary — and even strip her of the Republican label. But Spoon's tactics represented a new avenue of attack. For farm owners, it raises the possibility that speaking out — or running for office or backing the wrong bill — could trigger a political enemy to try to call down an ICE raid. Mickelsen knows who the employee is, that he's a father of three and that his criminal record was what got him deported. But even now, she said, she doesn't exactly know the exact nature of the man's immigration status during the time he worked for her family business. Employers of migrants can face legal risks if they inquire too aggressively into the immigration statuses of their employees. Immigration is a complicated topic, Mickelsen wrote in a statement to InvestigateWest, but using the issue to 'bully individuals and businesses trying to navigate complicated and often competing employee documentation laws is a disgusting and reprehensible way to act and should not be tolerated by anyone.' She's unsettled. She removed the names of her businesses from her campaign site, believing it would be unfair to subject her family to the same level of nastiness that politicians have come to expect. 'I'm being way more cautious in the bills that I'm standing up against, because I'm afraid of being targeted,' Mickelsen said. 'Which makes me a less effective legislator for my community right now.' In early January, Homan, Trump's pick for border czar, floated the immigration tip line as a 'fresh idea.' 'I want a place where American citizens can call and report,' he told NBC News. 'We need to take care of the American people.' ICE, to be clear, has had a tip line for over two decades. 'The difference is, in many ways, the tip line in the past was a black hole,' Thomas said. 'People would make tips and usually nothing would ever come of it.' Thomas said immigration tips are always prone to be taken advantage by those with scores to settle — abused by bitter exes and business rivals. In the past, he's defended at least three companies — a janitorial service, an agricultural company and a bakery — who were reported to ICE by competitors. But after Trump's second inauguration, he said, the entire framework of the federal government was refocused on immigration-related offensives. 'They have to arrest certain numbers of undocumented people each week,' Thomas said. 'They need to serve employers each week with notices of inspection. … They're even under pressure to conduct raids.' Effectively, Thomas said, ICE was being forced to rely on the tip line and the online tip website to fill its quotas. ICE tips had been transformed from mostly inert to a live weapon. While overall deportations have fallen due to fewer border crossings, Reuters reported, ICE arrests surged during the first week of Trump's administration. In the weeks since, the agency indicated there's been so much ICE activity that it's too busy to provide many specifics about ICE activity. Asked about Mickelsen, an ICE spokesperson said that because of their 'operational tempo' and increased interest in their agency, they were not able to respond to queries about rumors or routine operations. The news of actual ICE raids, along with the string of false reports and hoaxes, have made migrant farmworkers afraid. No matter their immigration status, many don't want to come to work, much less attend protests or share their stories publicly. CONTACT US 'Nobody's wanting to raise their head and speak up,' said Ben Tindall, executive director of Save Family Farming, a group representing farmers in neighboring Washington state. 'Regardless of whether they're here legally or not, they're afraid they're going to get a target on their back and ICE is going to come knocking on their door.' Freddy Cruz, who tracks extremists with the Western States Center, said he's seen a surge of white nationalist groups like the White Lives Matter Montana chapter encouraging people to report unauthorized immigrants to ICE. 'The ICE information tip line has come up more and more as a tactic,' Cruz said. 'Almost like weaponizing a government agency to try to intimidate not just undocumented immigrants, but also organizations that might be providing immigrant-rights services to folks.' Along with the Californian nonprofit, three offices of the United Farm Workers union were anonymously sent postcards featuring the phrases 'Report Illegal Aliens' and 'There is nowhere to hide,' along with the ICE tip line. At Arizona State University, the College Republicans United club teamed up with a Hitler-saluting neo-Nazi to sell club T-shirts with the phrase 'ICE Volunteer' and began urging students to report 'their criminal classmates to ICE for deportation.' But Spoon represents a more influential and mainstream example of this trend. Last year, Spoon was the chairman of the Idaho Freedom PAC, the political action committee linked to the political machine of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a historically influential think tank that purports to separate true conservatives from 'Republicans in Name Only' — or 'RINOS.' In the last two decades, more radical Republicans like Spoon immigrated to Idaho from left-leaning states like California, flooding the local Republican parties. Many of them cared less about the bottom line of Idaho's big businesses than culture wars and conservative purity — and immigration was a topic they were willing to drench with invective. On X, Spoon accused those who argue that migrant workers are necessary for the region's agriculture of being willing to pay anything 'for cheaper blueberries' — 'their daughters raped by illegals, their young people unemployed, foreign slaves exploited, drugs & crime flooding their communities.' When Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson co-sponsored a bipartisan bill to expand the temporary farmworker visa program and give migrants a path to permanent legal status, Spoon accused Simpson of a 'literal act of treason against the U.S., facilitating a foreign invasion.' Spoon argues he's not anti-immigrant — his wife is a legal immigrant from Germany — just anti illegal-immigration. 'Americans across a broad spectrum of politics are really fed up with the illegal immigration issue,' he said. 'The tone has definitely changed there, and people's willingness to confront that issue has changed.' The reactions he's received for calling ICE on Mickelsen's businesses, Spoon claimed, have been 'overwhelmingly positive.' But Mickelsen said she's heard from a lot of legislators who were 'completely disgusted' by his tactics. 'It's probably very disturbing for them to see this kind of treatment of a fellow legislator,' Mickelsen said. Spoon has repeatedly accused Mickelsen of being a 'Plantation Mistress,' taunting her that 'we're gonna take your farm slaves away from you.' But he told InvestigateWest that it's a 'mischaracterization' to accuse him of going after Mickelsen. She's the one to blame for the reports, he argued. 'Her own testimony drew attention to herself,' he said. Last March, during the debate about Idaho House Bill 753, intended to give local law enforcement and judges the ability to enforce immigration laws, Mickelsen bristled at what she felt was the denigration of the foreign-born workforce by her fellow legislators. Pointing to the production chain involving everyone from construction companies to the hospitality industry, and 'every food processor, probably, in the state,' Mickelsen declared that 'if you think that you haven't been touched by an illegal immigrant's hands in some way … you are kidding yourself.' To Spoon, it was practically a signed confession. 'While it is not reasonable to think that she is able to speak for every food processor, it is reasonable to think that she can speak for the food processor that she owns,' Spoon said. To Mickelson, she wasn't saying anything that hasn't been widely discussed: There likely are many unauthorized immigrants working for Idaho businesses. The Center for Migration Studies, a New York-based think tank focused on immigration issues, estimated that in 2021 there were roughly 10,000 unauthorized immigrants working in Idaho agriculture alone. Mickelsen told InvestigateWest that their farming operation relies on the legal temporary seasonal guest worker program to hire migrant laborers — a program that has grown by nearly two-thirds since 2016. 'It would be wonderful if you could hire a domestic workforce. But the problem is, people don't like to do farming jobs,' Mickelsen said. Her son, Andrew, Mickelsen Farms' chief operations manager, said in a statement that 'we would never knowingly employ an undocumented worker' and that 'our business cooperates with all authorities and supports our government's efforts to secure the border and keep Americans safe.' 'We follow all applicable federal and state laws to stay in compliance,' Rep. Mickelsen said. 'We want to be good neighbors.' Farm owners like Mickelsen are caught in a pincer between two federal agencies, said Thomas, the immigration attorney: Either accept documents at face value — some of which may be fakes from unauthorized immigrants — and risk punishment by Homeland Security, or question documents too closely and risk being sued by the 'wildly aggressive' Immigrant and Employee Rights division of the Department of Justice. Ultimately, Mickelsen voted for HB 753. But that did little to appease her critics. 'Should we post RINO Stephanie Mickelsen's (District 32) pro-illegal alien video every week until she is voted out of office?' asked the Stop Idaho Rino's X account. After Spoon bragged on X about reporting Mickelsen to ICE, one conservative Idaho commenter mockingly envisioned ICE listening to the 'passion-filled speech she said on the House floor.' 'Bet once she talks they drop their badges and quit on the spot,' he snarked. Spoon replied with wink and grin emojis. Mickelsen is not the only legislator Spoon has gone after. In September, Spoon targeted Rep. Jack Nelsen for the family dairy he'd worked on for decades, claiming on X that 'Plantation slaves at the Nelsen Dairy in Jerome, ID are ILLEGAL immigrants.' (Nelsen no longer personally has a stake in the business.) Spoon said he's reported only Mickelsen's businesses to ICE 'so far,' but pressed about whether he planned to report others, would only say 'I'm going to hold onto that for now.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE For Mickelsen, Spoon's actions spurred restless nights. 'I laid in bed at night for two nights in a row, and I said to myself, 'Am I willing to jump on this same bandwagon in the name of political theater, and not say anything? Not say 'wait a minute, this is wrong?'' Mickelsen said. 'Or am I just going to be silent?' In her interviews with InvestigateWest, Mickelsen sounded energetically defiant at moments — floating the possibility of taking legal action. Just a few days after being publicly reported to ICE, Mickelsen took another risky political stand on immigration: opposing a bill to require businesses to use E-Verify, a federal website intending to verify whether workers are legal. Mickelsen says that the program is plagued by inaccuracy, inconsistency and delays. But at other moments, her frustration and exhaustion shone through. 'You have to say to yourself, as this rancor gets worse, at what point is it worth it for me to serve in the Legislature?' Mickelsen said. 'If my family and everybody around me is at risk?' On social media, Spoon has often relished the idea of making Idaho so miserable for 'leftists' that they leave the state entirely. That strategy sounds familiar to Mike Colson, chair of the GOP Central Committee in southeastern Idaho's Bonneville County. Mickelsen helped Colson lead a wave of moderates last year to take back their local Republican party from hardliners with a similar approach to Spoon. 'That's part of their playbook for these legislators, to make it so miserable and so uncomfortable for them that hopefully they won't run again next time,' Colson said. 'That's what they're hoping for. That's what they want. They want us to quit.' Mickelsen's concern goes beyond any risk to her family's business — it's the worry that someone reading the vitriol online could do something drastic. She's been reading a lot about white nationalists lately. 'I have to actually think about my physical safety in a way that I probably haven't the entire time I've been in the Legislature,' Mickelsen said. She said she was advised to carry a gun — she has a concealed carry permit. But she worried that if the gun was wrested away from her by a larger attacker, it could ultimately put her at more risk. Today, Colson suspects Spoon's ICE reports were part of 'a coordinated attempt to send a chilling message to a number of persons that may not see eye-to-eye with some of their political allies,' he said. But the immigrant ICE arrested from Mickelsen Farms was vulnerable for another reason as well. The Trump administration had been touting its focus on arresting 'criminal aliens,' unauthorized immigrants with criminal records. In November 2022, the Mickelsen Farms employee, Sajid Soto, had previously been charged with battery and drug possession. According to the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office, he admitted to choking his wife during an argument and then, while being booked in the local jail, officers found a tiny amount of methamphetamine in his wallet. Even a migrant with permanent resident status can lose that status as a consequence of a domestic violence conviction, Thomas said. Soto had served his jail time, the restraining order had been lifted, and his felony possession conviction — which can cause a temporary agricultural visa to be revoked — had been dismissed after the farmworker completed probation. 'Now you have three children that are American citizens who are entitled to social benefits because their dad was supporting them and will not be any longer,' Mickelsen said. 'Works at Mickelsen Farms,' remains on the dad's Facebook page. Scroll down, and his cover photo from six years ago, taken through the rain-flecked windshield of his truck, shows a long row of green-and-gold John Deere tractors and combines lined up on a stretch of farm soil. 'Listos para sacar papas,' he wrote. Ready to pull out potatoes. InvestigateWest ( is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. A Report for America corps member, Daniel Walters covers democracy and extremism across the region. He can be reached at daniel@ SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Digital ID card, driver's license option bill narrowly passes Idaho House
The state flags hangs from the rotunda of the Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise on Jan. 7, 2025. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) The Idaho House of Representatives on Tuesday narrowly passed a bill to let Idahoans have digital identification cards. House Bill 78, sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, R-Idaho Falls, would allow the Idaho Transportation Department to issue electronic driver's licenses and ID cards that people could access on their mobile phone's wallet application. If the bill becomes law, the new digital driver's licenses would be optional, not required, and people with a mobile driver's license would still be required to have a physical driver's license. Mickelsen said almost three-forths of states either offer an electronic driver's license, or are developing one. 'By moving to a mobile driver's license system, it actually is more secure than the current system in which your driver's license exists, because it moves it into a … trusted vault that protects your data,' Mickelsen told the House. She added that digital driver's licenses would be 'an immigration security strategy,' and hopefully help stop fraud in Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as 'we build out Idaho's digital wallet.' Under the bill, digital driver's licenses or identification cards would not be allowed as proof of identification at election polls. The Idaho House passed the bill Tuesday on a 37-33 vote. In the half-hour debate on the bill, several lawmakers raised privacy and security concerns. The bill now heads to the Idaho Senate. To become law, Idaho bills must pass the House and Senate, and avoid the governor's veto. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d'Alene, who voted against the bill, raised several privacy concerns. 'We have a much further area to be concerned about, besides our being hacked, our individual information being hacked — the possibility of creating digital citizens who can collect benefits or, by the way, vote,' he argued. Rep. Rod Furniss, R-Rigby, who voted for the bill, called the bill 'a logical step in the right direction' and said the House's debate on the bill would be different if lawmakers were younger. 'If we had a room full of 25 year olds in this room, they would think we are old fuddy-duddies for not putting this on our phone and not making it legal and not being a step in the right direction,' Furniss told the House. 'This is going to come in the future, whether you want it or not.' Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R–Moscow, who voted against the bill, said sheriffs in his district opposed the bill, along with several university security department heads he talked to. ''No, this is a bad idea. My students could hack into that in minutes,' is what they were telling me,' Mitchell said. Mickelsen said the bill is supported by many sheriffs, and several cybersecurity experts at Idaho National Laboratory she consulted assured her about possible security risks. 'They all told me that these are some of the highest keys that exist out there in the cyber world. … That it's a very safe, very reliable system,' she said. The bill's fiscal note estimates it will have no fiscal impact, since ITD has already been allocated money for similar projects. The bill would also not automatically let law enforcement officers search people's phones if people present their digital ID cards. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Idaho Legislature introduces new bill requiring employers E-Verify all new employees
The Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise shines in the sunlight on Jan. 7, 2025. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) A new bill introduced Friday morning in the Idaho Legislature would prohibit all Idaho employers from hiring non U.S. citizens who do not have the legal authorization to work in the United States. The bill, House Bill 252, also requires every Idaho business and employer to enroll in and use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify program to verify new employees' authorization to work beginning on Jan. 1. 'It is unlawful for any employer to knowingly employ, hire, recruit, or refer, either for the employer itself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state an unauthorized worker who is not duly authorized to be employed by law,' the bill states. Rep. Jordan Redman, R-Coeur d'Alene, sponsored the new bill. '(This new bill) adds to Idaho employment law to prohibit employment of illegal aliens and require employers to use E-Verify for each new hire to verify legal employment status as a condition of their employment,' Redman said while presenting the bill Friday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise. Redman said state agencies and public contractors that receive state funds are already required to use E-Verify. The new bill extends that requirement to all Idaho businesses and employers. Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, an Idaho Falls Republican and potato farmer, opposed the bill and made an unsuccessful attempt to prevent its introduction Friday. Mickelsen said she believes the fiscal note attached to the bill, which states 'This legislation causes no additional expenditure of funds at the state or local level of government …' is inaccurate. Mickelsen also said she opposes other provisions of the bill, but did not go into specific details. One aspect of the bill would allow Idaho residents to petition the Idaho attorney general to bring enforcement actions against specific employers or businesses. 'I see some problems within this bill …,' Mickelsen said. The bill would have far-reaching effects if it is signed into law. The Idaho dairy industry, which reports more than $10 billion in total sales and says it ranks third in milk production in the United States, says that 90% of on-dairy jobs are held by Spanish-speaking workers who were not born in the United States, many of whom do not have legal authorization to work in the United States. 'The success and growth of Idaho's dairy industry is not achievable without the contributions of the talented, predominantly Hispanic workforce who has toiled beside Idaho's dairy farm families for generations,' the Idaho Dairymen's Association wrote on its website. The Idaho Dairymen's Association has called for extending legal protections to existing agriculture workers and their immediate families, as well as access to a year-round worker visa program for agriculture workers. 'The labor shortage in the dairy industry is worsened by the inability to access a visa program for year-round jobs or the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program,' the Idaho Dairymen's Association wrote on its website. Friday's hearing was an introductory hearing, which does not include public testimony. Introducing the bill clears the way for it to return to the House State Affairs Committee for a full public hearing, which could occur as early as next week. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
