Press

Primary sources, 2007 to 2021, so you don’t have to take my word for any of it. Most of it concerns Arizona’s employer sanctions law and what it did to the businesses operating under it.

Businesses say immigrants crucial to state’s economyPaul Giblin · East Valley Tribune · June 2007 A month before the sanctions bill was signed. I describe sixty-five managers being asked to authenticate identity documents daily, and why they couldn’t. Giblin went on to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, with Ryan Gabrielson, for the Tribune’s investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s immigration enforcement.
Keeping Them HonestAnderson Cooper 360 · CNN · August 2007 Reported from Phoenix, running the employer case against Russell Pearce’s.
Appearances on immigration policy and employer sanctionsC-SPAN Including Washington Journal, August 2007.
Self-MutilationPhoenix New Times · 2007 On what the sanctions law would do to Arizona’s economy. Argues the law would hand Sheriff Arpaio a tool against outspoken business owners, and names me as the obvious example — six years before the audit.
Arizona Squeeze On Immigration Angers BusinessMiriam Jordan · The Wall Street Journal · December 2007 Records that I had already brought in outside auditors three times to check twelve hundred employees, before the law had taken effect.
Arizona firms brace for immigration sanctions lawTim Gaynor · Reuters · December 2007 Two days before the law took effect. I say Arizona has become too risky and that we will expand in Texas instead.
Arizona’s Immigration Two-StepLee Hockstader · The Washington Post · April 2008 Built around two interviews: Pearce, and me.
Fast FeudsRichard Nadler · National Review · August 2008 On why conservatives should stop assuming business opponents of these laws were looking for cheap labor. Documents the E-Verify error rates and what the Arizona conservative movement made of our position.
Charting the Legal Immigration MazeReason Foundation · August 2008 I am quoted on why a broken legal visa process guarantees an unauthorized workforce, alongside the ACLU and the Krieble Foundation.
The One-Man WallKerry Howley · Reason · October 2008 A profile of the law’s author and its effects. I am the employer counterpoint.
U.S.-Mexico Border Policy ReportBorder Network for Human Rights · November 2008 I am listed among the task force members, alongside border mayors, county attorneys, sheriffs, clergy and civil rights organizations.
A Sad Case Study in Failed Immigration PolicyTestimony to the Texas House State Affairs Committee · April 2009 My own words, submitted to a legislature considering the same law. Includes the compliance program and the argument that E-Verify was not what it was advertised to be.
Arizona Immigration Law Is Awful, But It’s ConstitutionalAlex Nowrasteh · Cato Institute · April 2012 Fourteen months before ICE served us. Sets out the E-Verify failure rates and cites me as an employer who stopped expanding.
How Immigration Crackdowns Screw Up Americans’ LivesShikha Dalmia · Reason · December 2017 A cover feature on interior enforcement. The opening case study is the ICE audit of my companies and what it cost. My attorney Julie Pace gives her own assessment of why we were targeted.
Burger franchise to re-use cooking oil in carsMSNBC · 2007 On converting the company fleet to run on waste fryer oil, and on ethanol subsidies as special-interest politics.
French Fry TrucksArizona Horizon · Arizona PBS · June 2008 Full transcript. How the fleet conversion started, what it saved, and why the trucks smelled like lunch.
Contributor page and columnsFox News

Business coverage

Trade and regional reporting on the restaurant organization, 2008–2013.

Driving While Brown

Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block, University of California Press, 2021. The Arizona chapter is reported independently there, across several chapters, with corroborating interviews. The Phoenix civil rights attorney Antonio Bustamante told the authors that in terms of the civil rights history of Arizona, he considers me an important figure. I would never claim that. He said it, and he was there.