County law only a start to immigration question
Published Sunday, December 30, 2007

The new year brings a new challenge for Beaufort County officials -- implementing the county's ordinance to tighten the screws on those who hire illegal immigrants.

The county's business license ordinance aims to verify that those who hold county business licenses hire only lawfully documented workers. The county -- which has gracious plenty already on its plate --is hiring an outside auditing firm to do the work of checking a company's paperwork. Businesses risk getting their business licenses suspended or revoked if they're found to be employing undocumented workers. It affects only businesses who do business in unincorporated Beaufort County who are supposed to have a county license.

The plan is to randomly audit a business' I-9 employment verification forms. All employees in the U.S. are required to complete the federal form when they start a job to verify they are legally allowed to work in the United States.

Beaufort County is not alone. In fact, that noise you hear is the sound of local and state governments rushing to fill the vacuum left by federal officials' inaction this year on comprehensive immigration reform. Beaufort County passed its ordinance in December 2006, but waited a year to start enforcing it, in part to see what Congress would do. Many are now watching Arizona to see what happens when its statewide law goes into effect Jan. 1. (See The Washington Post editorial on 5AA.)

Few expect Congress to take up this hot potato during a presidential election year. Instead, candidates and their parties largely are jockeying for the position they think will get the most votes in November. Pandering is the word that comes to mind.

We're not optimistic the county's ordinance will do a lot to turn the tide of illegal immigration in this area. More likely to do that is a slower real estate market and the resulting fewer jobs.

We've asked these questions before, but they bear repeating:

• How will county officials make sure a business is not operating under a suspended license? Nearly 2,000 businesses have been operating without a license in unincorporated Beaufort County, according to a 2006 report. If a business has a storefront, you might be able to ensure that it's not operating under a suspended license, but how will the county enforce such a suspension for a subcontractor or landscaper moving from job site to job site?

• What do you do about businesses physically located in Jasper County or Savannah, but doing business in unincorporated Beaufort County? Can county auditors travel outside the county's jurisdiction to conduct an audit? How do you enforce a suspension?

If the business license suspension is the hammer that's supposed to make employers follow the law, then enforcement of that suspension is critical.

It's interesting to note that of the 62 firms the county contacted about bidding on the work, only three responded by the deadline. It took months for county administrator Gary Kubic to hire a new business license director, who also starts in January. Jeanette Roseberry will have her work cut out for her just making sure the businesses who should have county business licenses get them, not an easy task in an area of mobile businesses and a long-standing history of cash payments to workers and a fairly vibrant underground economy. Could the new ordinance make that situation worse?

State lawmakers came to town earlier this month to talk about state legislation on this issue. The idea is to make South Carolina a less attractive place for illegal immigrants to work and live.

The proposal includes these provisions:

• For a business to claim tax deductions for workers' pay, it would have to have copies of a driver's license or state ID card, as well as a second form of picture ID.

• State and local agencies would have to verify the legal status of any person seeking public assistance.

• Businesses who fire legal workers for the specific purpose of hiring illegal immigrants could be held liable for damages under state law.

• State and local agencies could only hire businesses that employ legal workers.

Targeting the business end of this pipeline at least gets to the heart of what brings many illegal immigrants here -- jobs. But the county's ordinance and the state proposal don't offer any silver bullets. We still need a federal solution.

http://www.islandpacket.com/opinion/story/116748.html