Sanford reiterates call for strong immigration bill

Wednesday, April 09, 2008


COLUMBIA -- Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday issued the following statement on the immigration reform bills currently being deliberated by a House-Senate conference committee. The bills aimed at addressing illegal immigration in our state were called for by the governor during his State of the State address as part of his "First 30 Days" agenda:

"While I'd give the House and Senate -- and in particular Senator Ritchie -- credit for moving toward the idea of some form of worker verification, we believe that the bills are missing a critical piece without the e-verify system," Gov. Sanford said.

"In talking to folks around South Carolina, what I keep hearing is that unless businesses verify the citizenship of their workers, we don't have true immigration reform. We believe if we had a law that contained the e-verify requirement, rather than the I-9 option, it would have a greater impact on illegal immigration in our state than the rest of this bill combined. I'd respectfully ask that the conferees revisit this idea."

Currently, the House version of the bill does not contain any verification requirements for private employers. The Senate version contains a verification requirement for private employers, but permits it to be satisfied by using the failed Federal I-9 form verification process. The I-9 process is an ineffective system already employed by the federal government in which fraudulent documents can be used to satisfy the verification requirements, and federal law prohibits employers or states from checking the validity of the documents.

Governor Sanford agrees with Senators Campsen and McConnell that a critical component of the legislation would be requiring private employers to check a valid South Carolina driver's licenses, a new S.C. version of the I-9, or use the online e-verify system.

Five states already use e-verify in some capacity, including Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, and neighboring Georgia. In fact, Arizona has reported that illegal immigrants are starting to self-deport due to the effectiveness of the e-verify system.

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