A two-year effort to curb illegal immigration in Missouri came to fruition Monday as Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation designed to catch illegal workers and punish their employers.

   The bill contains a wide range of new requirements, including mandatory checks on the legal status of all public employees, welfare applicants and criminal suspects whenever they are jailed.

   It also creates a state law prohibiting the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, enacts new penalties for transporting illegal immigrants through Missouri and empowers the state Highway Patrol to enforce federal immigration law.

   It also empowers the attorney general to file civil actions against employers who hire illegal workers and allows the state to cancel contracts with such companies. Repeat offenders could lose their business licenses.

   Many of the bill’s restrictions – such as a prohibition on welfare benefits – are already prohibited by federal law. And several other provisions were already enforced through policies that Blunt adopted last year.

   But Blunt said the new laws created penalties for violations, eliminated ambiguities in the law and made certain that those policies would remain in force after his term ends in January. He predicted the changes would reduce the number of illegal workers in Missouri.

   “This sends a message that as a state we take this seriously,” Blunt said. “We want to help legal immigrants integrate into our society. But this sets high standards, higher than other states, for curbing illegal immigration.”

   Critics, however, said the law faced probable legal challenges from several quarters. Joan Suarez, chairwoman of Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates in St. Louis, said civil liberties groups are bothered by a provision that appears to allow judges to deny bail for many defendants who cannot prove they are in Missouri legally.

   Others question a provision that allows Missouri to not recognize licenses from some other states. And business groups appear poised to challenge a requirement that all state contractors and businesses receiving state loans or tax credits of more than $5,000 use a federal electronic system to verify new employees’ legal status, Suarez said.

   “That is really problematic because of all the inaccuracies in the system,” Suarez said.

   Blunt took pains to emphasize that the measures were intended to enforce the rule of law and not designed to discriminate against legal immigrants. He said the law is designed to avoid profiling against Hispanic residents by applying the new rules to all welfare applicants and all criminal suspects regardless of their language or ancestry.

   Since August, Blunt said, the policy of checking immigration status of everyone booked into jail has caught more than 250 illegal residents, including people from Europe and China.

   “We welcome legal immigrants,” Blunt said. “We want them to learn our language, to start businesses and build their lives here. But equality before the law” is a pillar of that society.

   The new law also prohibits issuing a driver’s license to a person who cannot prove they are a lawful resident of Missouri and creates penalties for helping an illegal immigrant obtain a driver’s license.

   It prohibits Missouri cities from adopting policies to ignore violations of immigration law by otherwise law-abiding residents. And it requires all applicants for public assistance to prove they are in the state legally.

   Everyone hired by state or local government will have to prove their legal residency.