[quote="Tim Smith, The Greenville News (click masthead)"]
Immigration reform passes Legislature
[size=109]Tim Smith, STAFF WRITER, May 29, 2008

COLUMBIA -- After years of wrestling with the issue, the Legislature today gave final approval to a compromise plan for immigration reform that will require all employers in the state to verify the legal status of new workers. The House voted 94-16 to concur with a proposal approved by the Senate this week, sending the bill to Gov. Mark Sanford, who said he would sign it. "Working together, we've put forth a bill that will make a difference when it comes to illegal immigration in South Carolina, and I look forward to signing it when it reaches my desk," Sanford said in a statement afterward. The bill requires all employers, no matter their size, to verify the legal status of their new workers beginning next summer, though businesses with fewer than 100 workers would have until the summer of 2010 to do so, and to use the federal electronic verification database or state driver's licenses.

Employers who knowingly and intentionally hire illegal workers face a suspension or revocation of their ability to operate in the state under the bill, which grants each employer an imputed business license that can then be acted upon if companies violate the law. Today's vote came after months of public sniping by House and Senate members over the issue that only ended when leaders from both chambers negotiated a compromise in the last week and then asked their members to approve it. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison said passage of immigration reform was a "long time coming." "I think what we have done today is protect the businesses of South Carolina, the employees of South Carolina and the taxpayers of South Carolina," he said.

[color=blue][b]House Speaker Bobby Harrell called the bill the strongest immigration reform in the nation. “This bill does more than any other plan in the country to address the hundreds of millions of dollars illegal immigration is costing states each year,â€