PHOENIX (AP) - Leaders in a northern Arizona town hope to discourage illegal immigrants from living in their community through a proposal that would strip employers and landlords of their business licenses if they hire or rent to illegal border-crossers.

The proposal being drafted for the Payson Town Council represents one of the most advanced attempts by an Arizona municipality in recent years to confront illegal immigration.

Payson Mayor Bob Edwards said some local employers have complained that they followed the federal law requiring workers to be in the country legally and yet unscrupulous businesses have benefited from the lower wages accepted by illegal immigrants.

"We want to make Payson the place not to come to if you aren't here legally," Edwards said. "We don't want to get ugly about it, but we want to send the message that enough is enough."

More than 100 communities in at least 27 states have considered laws cracking down on illegal immigrants in the past year, ranging from penalizing companies that employ illegal immigrants to making English the official language of local government. Some have passed, but opponents battled back, winning court orders blocking enforcement in some of the cities.

The proposal in Payson, a town of 15,000 located 90 minutes northeast of downtown Phoenix, would require employers to sign an affidavit saying they completed mandatory federal employment eligibility forms that ask the immigration status of workers and have reviewed documents to back up the responses.

It also would require landlords renting three or more units to complete an affidavit saying they verified that their tenants are in the country lawfully.

Town officials hoped to vote on the measure next month.

No other towns or cities appear to have proposed similar measures in Arizona. Officials from a dozen municipalities who responded to an informal survey by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns said their communities hadn't proposed similar measures.

The Mohave County Minutemen had lobbied Lake Havasu City, Kingman and Bullhead City to craft a similar proposal, but leaders in those cities rebuffed the group's measure. The city officials said it was the federal government's job to crack down on illegal immigration.

Edwards said the Payson measure was prompted by complaints of community members and wasn't made at the urging of groups pushing for tougher immigration laws.

Advocates for immigrants predicted the Payson measure, if approved, would eventually be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional and undermine a sense of community by encouraging people to be distrustful of their neighbors.

"It sends this message out into the community that not everybody has rights and cannot be treated with dignity," said Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group based in southern Arizona.

Supporters of the local measures said communities have a legal right to regulate activities in their neighborhoods and that renting to illegal immigrants essentially puts municipalities on the hook for providing government services, such as education for children, to immigrants.

"We expect that number (of communities pursuing immigration measures) is going to grow," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors limits on immigration. "More and more communities are being affected by an influx of illegal immigration."

On the Net:

Town of Payson: http://www.ci.payson.az.us/

Border Action Network: http://www.borderaction.org/

Federation for American Immigration Reform: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer