Thread: SC Businesses to Be Required to Hire Through E-Verify Soon

SC Businesses to Be Required to Hire Through E-Verify Soon

wisradio.com
ABC News Radio
Dec 5, 2011

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) -- Small businesses across South Carolina are about to undergo big changes in their hiring processes.

The Post and Courier reports that effective Jan. 1, every employer in South Carolina will be required to use an online database network overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called E-Verify to determine the immigration status of newly hired employees.

The state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation will be checking up on businesses to ensure they are complying with the new requirement that is part of a state immigration law that was approved in July.

Businesses that do not comply with the requirement run the risk of losing their operating licenses.

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Good job South Carolina! Keep moving it forward states. State by state we will stop illegal immigration into the United States.

And here's another idea for the states. States that pass immigration laws should refuse the federal government's already questionable right to tax the income of its corporations and citizens under a federal budget that spends 1 dime on welfare, tax credit welfare and other services for illegal aliens in states with no immigration law. Your corporations, businesses and citizens should be given a huge federal tax credit for being virtually free of illegal aliens.

Small Businesses not Ready for E-Verify rules
South Carolina’s new immigration law makes it mandatory for all businesses to use the E-Verify program when hiring, starting Jan. 1, but many of the state’s small businesses don’t know the change is coming.

943wsc.com
by Ellen Meder
Tuesday, December 6, 2011

E-Verify is an online program that allows employers to input information from required I-9 hiring forms and find out a new employee’s legal work status. South Carolina government jobs, including positions at public universities, have been screened with E-Verify since 2009, as have private jobs at companies with more than 100 employees.

The law, signed by Gov. Nikki Haley at the end of June, extends the requirement to all businesses.

But experts say the smaller the business, the less likely they know about the change, and some, like SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce President Frank Knapp, say the more difficult it will be for them to use the program, since it requires broadband Internet access.

“A lot of businesses won't be able to do it in their business. That means they would have to go find a computer with broadband service in their rural area and hopefully get there at a time somebody knows how to use E-Verify and can do it for them. It's just going to be a mess," Knapp said.

He said it will make things especially difficult for farmers who often aren’t near a computer when hiring workers, and very small rural businesses with fewer than four employees.

But Jim Knight, the administrator of immigrant worker compliance at the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which is charged with enforcing the law, says the department knew Internet access isn’t a given for all businesses.

The agency trained librarians and Department of Employment and Workforce workers from across the state so employers can get guidance and a computer access at any local library or workforce office. Knight said signing up can take 30 minutes to an hour 15 minutes depending on how quickly a person can read the E-Verify manual and that those who use it have told him it’s a fairly simple process even if they complained about the new regulation at first.

But Knapp said helping small businesses is easier said than done.

“If they don’t have a computer their going to have to find one, so that interrupts their daily life. I can see some small businesses in rural areas actually shutting down for a while during the day while the owner travels to some state agency in that county and pleads with that state employee to ‘let me use your computer and do you know how to use E-Verify?’,â€