Employers

Federal officials Wednesday notified more than 650 businesses around the country, including nearly 50 in Los Angeles, that their records will be audited as part of a widening effort to find companies that hire illegal immigrants. The number of notices issued is the largest ever in a single day and exceeds the total sent out in all of fiscal 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

In a major departure from the Bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday issued new work site enforcement guidelines that shift the focus to employers rather than illegal workers and could be a harbinger of more immigration reforms. The federal guidelines instruct agents to conduct "carefully planned criminal investigations" of employers and to look for evidence that they may be involved in smuggling or visa fraud.

Beverly Hills has long afforded companies a platinum-plated address with amenities to match -- top-notch restaurants, hotels and boutiques in a walkable environment. The city has attracted such prestigious businesses as MySpace, Live Nation, Platinum Equity and talent agencies William Morris and the Firm. But in recent years Beverly Hills has suffered the loss of three high-profile companies: Creative Artists Agency and ICM, talent agencies that migrated to Century City; and Hilton Hotels Corp.

Stepping into the political minefield of immigration reform, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano soon will direct federal agents to focus more on arresting and prosecuting American employers than the illegal laborers who sneak into the country to work for them, department officials said Monday.

A federal judge Thursday upheld a controversial new Arizona law that mandates the closure of businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge Neil Wake rejected the arguments of business and immigrant-rights groups, which sued saying the law was an unconstitutional usurping of the federal government's right to regulate immigration. "The act does not make employers conform to a stricter form of conduct than federal law," Wake wrote in his 37-page decision.

Federal regulators have proposed relatively minor changes to the popular Family and Medical Leave Act, a relief for advocates who had feared a sweeping rewrite that would have made it difficult for people to take advantage of it. The proposals, released this month by the Labor Department, would give employers more leeway to verify that people taking medical leave were actually sick.

The Bush administration said Friday that it plans to significantly raise fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, part of a broader effort that includes improved border security after Congress failed to pass immigration-related legislation in 2007. The hikes in employer fines will be the first since 1999. The new policy is the latest aimed at the most sensitive pressure point in illegal immigration: businesses that employ the workers. The U.S.

A federal appeals court Thursday refused to block a controversial Arizona law that shuts down businesses for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. The action by the three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco clears the way for the statute to be enforced beginning Saturday. In a brief order, the judges said that business and immigrant rights groups had not shown an adequate need for delaying enforcement of the law. After the measure went into effect Jan.

A federal appeals court Wednesday sharply limited the ability of employers to obtain e-mails and text messages sent by employees on company-financed accounts. The text message portion of the ruling, issued by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will affect all employers who contract with an outside provider for messaging, as most do. Access to e-mail would be barred if the employer contracts out its e-mail service rather than maintaining an internal server to handle it.

For a decade, California employers and their advocates in Sacramento complained about the high cost of workers' compensation insurance and condemned abuses of the system by employees, who they said fake claims, exaggerate medical conditions and collect fat disability benefits. But some data suggest that employers -- not workers -- are the bigger workers' compensation cheaters. And the state is stepping up enforcement against businesses suspected of ignoring the law and endangering workers.