Thread: SC: Laws taking aim at illegal immigration

Laws taking aim at illegal immigration
By Michelle Guffey| South Carolina Bureau
Tuesday, September 23, 20083 comments

AIKEN, SC --- Illegal immigrants in South Carolina are not feeling the warmth of Southern hospitality as state and local lawmakers try to turn back the tide of undocumented workers in the state.

"If anyone doesn't think we have an illegal immigration problem, just walk down the street on Whiskey Road and see them all walking around," said Aiken County Councilman Gary Bunker. A year ago, he helped sponsor an ordinance that addressed the issue in the county.

The ordinance made English the county's official language and outlined how the county would conduct business with companies that hire undocumented workers.

Mr. Bunker said the ordinance was "born out of frustration with the fact that neither the state of South Carolina nor the U.S. government was doing anything to deal with the issue."

Because illegal immigration has to be addressed primarily on a national and state level, County Administrator Clay Killian said, the county was limited. So it focused on how it would respond to companies and agencies doing business with the county.

Another provision of the ordinance states that companies doing business with the county have to swear they don't hire illegal immigrants. If caught doing so, they can be put on a "no hire" list for three years. It also says the county will not provide discretionary funding to agencies helping illegals.

According to Mr. Bunker, illegal immigration is a burden on local governments and any entity that provides benefits.

"Every time you have an illegal giving birth in an emergency room, guess who's paying for that?" he said.

So far, no company or agency that does business with the county has been found in violation of the ordinance, but the county didn't have much time to implement the law before the state government passed its own legislation.

In June, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford signed into law the Illegal Immigration Reform Act, dealing directly with employers who hire undocumented workers, something council member Willar Hightower said was missing in the county's ordinance.

Mr. Hightower, who voted against the local legislation, said the solution is going after the people who hire illegal aliens.

"My philosophy is illegal aliens would not come unless somebody was going to hire them," he said. "The hiring people are the ones that we should go after, not the immigrants."

To do that the county would have to implement a business license requirement.

"We couldn't tell other folks how to do business because we didn't have a whip over businesses because we don't have a business-license ordinance," Mr. Bunker said.

Some counties do have business license requirements. In Beaufort County, companies that hire illegal immigrants lose their business licenses.

In Aiken County, "that was the kind of thing we could not impose," Mr. Bunker said. "We tried to do whatever we thought we could do within the balance of the law."
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/09 ... 6766.shtml

Another provision of the ordinance states that companies doing business with the county have to swear they don't hire illegal immigrants. If caught doing so, they can be put on a "no hire" list for three years. It also says the county will not provide discretionary funding to agencies helping illegals.

E-Verifying? I-9S? How wonderful of South Carolina to make employers E-Verify the I-9 of an immigrant.