Midlands Business Trends

By ROBERT LINNEHAN | Business Trends
Businesses employing illegal immigrants in the state may want to rethink their hiring strategy, as the July 1 deadline for the Illegal Immigration Reform Act quickly approaches. After July 1, any private employers with more than 100 employees that hire illegal immigrants can be subjected to monetary fines or temporary suspensions of their work licenses.
Gov. Sanford signed the Illegal Immigration Reform Act into law last year. The new bill will require all private employers to verify the legal status of new employees and prohibits employment of any worker who is not legally in this country and authorized to work.
The July 1 deadline will affect businesses with more than 100 employees. Businesses with fewer than 100 employees will have to comply with the bill by July 1, 2010.
Jim Knight, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, said businesses that do not comply with the new bill would be susceptible to public complaints and audits from the department.
“It’s a very tough law and it’s intended to be,” Knight said. “Our legislature has taken the position that we should only be hiring workers in this state who are authorized to work in the country.”
Businesses must either utilize E-Verify, a free work authorization program administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or verify that a potential employee possesses a state driver’s license or identification card issued by the state’s department of motor vehicles. Potential employees, if they don’t have a driver’s license or identification card, can also demonstrate that they possess the necessary documents needed to obtain one of these pieces of identification.
E-Verify provides automatic information for a potential employee, Knight said. The business inputs information from the employee’s I-9 form and receives an automatic response from the program as to whether the employee can be hired.
Otis Rawl, president of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, said the new bill would open opportunities for Americans who are sitting in the unemployment line waiting for their chance at a job.
“I think it’s going to have a dramatic impact. Removing the illegal workers who were in this area will open up jobs for people in the unemployment line and give them opportunities in the state,” he said.
“We don’t condone hiring illegal immigrants.”
The new bill will free up positions for Americans who are losing out to illegal employees, Rawl said. When the state comes out of the nationwide recession, he said there would be many opportunities for legal Americans to work.
It’s a manageable law, he said, which will benefit the state’s economy. The unskilled labor force comprises about 71-72 percent of the unemployed in the state, Rawl said. If the bill sways businesses from hiring illegal employees, it will ideally open employment opportunities for legal Americans, he said.
“I think it’s a good piece of legislation. Our General Assembly and business community worked very hard on this piece of legislation,” he said. “We’re working very hard to keep illegals out of the Midlands area.”
If businesses don’t verify all future employees with either of the two methods, Knight said, they could be subjected to monetary fines. However, if a business is found to be employing illegal aliens after the July 1 deadline, they can have their licenses suspended for a certain amount of time.
On first offense, Knight said a business has its license suspended for 10 to 30 days. A second offense results in a suspension of 60 to 90 days, and a third offense results in a revocation of the license until the business can prove it’s complying with the bill.
After another offense, Knight said the business could have its license suspended for five years.
The E-Verify system can be confusing, said Elizabeth Haney, the director of human resources and project manager of Compli-9 and EEV of General Information Services. GIS is a state company that has been a designated federal agent of the E-Verify system since 2003.
GIS can help employers with the E-Verify system, she said, which is more complicated than most imagine.
“If you go through a designated agent, we take care of getting the account set up with the Department of Homeland Security. There’s very little paperwork. We do it all for them,” Haney said. “The other thing is you have to complete a tutorial for E-Verify. It can take from three to six hours. If you use a designated agent such as GIS, we’ve already done that. That’s a huge time saver.”
The company can also act as a point of reference for an employer that has questions about the new system.
Instead of calling the Department of Homeland Security, she said, the employer can directly call GIS, which knows the account information and can work through specific problems.
GIS can help private employers streamline the new process and make it as effective as possible, she said.
“We do the background screening, employment verifications, processing for I9 compliance, and we have the relationship with the Department of Homeland Security as the designated agent for E-Verify,” she said. “If a company wants to outsource some of its human resource functions, GIS has the experience.”
Private employers can find more information on GIS and the services it offers at www.geninfo.com. For more information on the new bill, visit llr.state.sc.us/immigration.

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