Iowa Looks to Punish Businesses Hiring Illegals After Mollie Tibbetts Death

Mollie Tibbetts-Bahena-Rivera-Yarrabee Farms
(AP Images/Facebook)

Iowa state lawmakers are looking to crack down on businesses hiring illegal aliens in the wake of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts’ alleged murder by an illegal alien.

A measure by 26 Iowa state Senate Republicans would strip businesses who knowingly hire illegal aliens of their business licenses and would mandate that employers use the E-Verify system — which weeds out illegal aliens from taking American jobs — before receiving any Iowa tax dollars in the form of economic development incentives.

Already, the crackdown on illegal hiring has passed a subcommittee, according to the Des Moines Register.

The legislation would mandate that if a business is found to have knowingly hired an illegal alien instead of an American citizen, the company would have to fire all illegal hires and be put on probation for three years where the business owner would be required to submit four reports a year about each newly hired worker.

If a business was found to have hired an illegal alien, again, after being put on probation, the company would lose its business license from the state. The legislation would create a statewide database of every Iowa business that has hired an illegal alien instead of an American.

The Iowa Chamber Alliance, the state chapter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is opposing the legislation claiming the E-Verify system is not precise enough.

Such a bill already has widespread support among Iowans. As Breitbart News reported last year, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found about 63 percent of Iowans blame employers for hiring illegal aliens, rather than the illegal aliens, themselves. Only about 16 percent of Iowans said they blame the illegal aliens.

The poll came after it was revealed that Tibbetts’ alleged killer, 24-year-old illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera from Mexico, had been illegally working at Yarrabee Farms, a dairy farm in Brooklyn, Iowa.

In August 2018, Bahena-Rivera was charged with Tibbetts’ murder after police said he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and worked on the dairy farm using a stolen ID and Social Security card after allegedly crossing the U.S.-Mexico border as a child.

The illegal alien even lived in a trailer on property owned by Yarrabee Farms. The trailer, according to locals, was frequented by Mexican nationals who worked at the dairy farm.

Despite initial claims, the owners of Yarrabee Farms admitted that they did not use the E-Verify system to check if Bahena-Rivera’s stolen ID and Social Security card were real.

The high-profile Tibbetts murder trial against Bahena-Rivera will begin in September.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder

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