COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) -
If you do any hiring in South Carolina and you don't run new hires through a federal database, the government could shut you down.
It's called the eVerify database, and now, state regulators are looking for employers who are not using the system.
When Gov. Nikki Haley signed the state's new illegal immigration reform act one year ago, it carried with it a way for employers to verify immigration status of all new hires.
State investigators found not all employers are following the law.
"We are putting costs and burdens on small businesses at a time when everybody's saying we need small business to hire," said Frank Knapp with the state Small Business Chamber. "It doesn't make any sense."
Knapp has fought the eVerify law from the beginning. He calls the mandate a hurdle to hiring and one that could force small business owners to make tough decisions.
"I'm just not going to hire somebody, it's too much of a problem, or I'm going to hire them and I'm just going to take the chance that I'll get caught," Knapp said.
Jim Knight handles eVerify for the state department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation. Knight has spent the past 6 months traveling to every county to educate employers about the penalties of not following the law.
The process is free, and all an employer has to do is log onto the Internet, register with eVerify, and submit a name, birth date, and social. In seconds, the system lets an employer know whether they can hire the applicant.
For a first violation, the state puts the employer on probation and requires quarterly reporting of all hiring. A second violation could cost a business owner their livelihood.
"It's clear, it doesn't say an exemption, it says we will shut the business down for 10 to 30 days and in this economy, I don't know of any business that can afford to close their doors for 10 days. Surely not 30 days," Knight said.
Haley has a tough stance against illegal immigration in South Carolina.
"This enforces the fact that illegal immigration is not welcome in South Carolina," Haley said. "Legal immigration is more than welcome in South Carolina."
Haley signed the law last June. However, the law doesn't include all workers. There are three groups that don't have to verify: agriculture workers, domestic servants, and clergy. For small businesses, the exemption doesn't make sense.
"When the public thinks about the types of occupations that an undocumented worker would be here doing, they think of construction, landscaping, they think of farm workers and they think of domestic servants, so the law basically exempts two of those major industries from compliance," Knapp said.
Again, the legislature gave employers a 6-month grace period before issuing penalties. That is now over.
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