Progress on immigration
Filed Under Caucus, Top News, Ritchie, McConnell
State Senate passes breakthrough reform plan
Immigration reform
The issue: State legislators have been wrestling over how employers verify whether a worker is in the country legally.
What happened: The Senate approved a bill that would impose fines on employers up to $10,000 for each illegally hired worker.
What’s next?: The Senate agreed to give the bill automatic final approval today and send the bill to the House for consideration next week.
The state Senate broke a filibuster late Wednesday to approve a measure that would fine employers up to $10,000 for every illegal immigrant hired in South Carolina. The bill is an attempt to break weeks of deadlock with the House over immigration reform.
“The Senate passed the most aggressive illegal immigration reform bill in the nation,” said Sen. Jim Ritchie, R-Spartanburg, who has studied the issue on behalf the Senate for more than two years.
The bill contains a long list of provisions that House and Senate on, such as a mandate that prisons check the legal status of criminals. The measure passed second reading on a voice vote with the provision that it will get final approval today with no debate.
What the Senate voted for Wednesday also would impose new standards for the hiring of all South Carolina workers.
Employers would be required to check a worker’s legal status using a state driver’s license or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s online E-Verify. The bill offers a third option, a newly created S.C. Verify that would mirror the federal I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form.
S.C. Verify would be a paper alternative to federal E-Verify. The state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation would monitor and fine employers that hire workers whose Social Security numbers are bogus.
The highlights include:
–Identities of the workers and the employers would be turned over to state and federal authorities.
–Penalties would start at $100 per employee for negligence that would begin with poor record keeping. If an employer intentionally hires an illegal immigrant, fines would begin at $250 per employee for a first offense and rise to up to $10,000 per employee on a third offense.
While the senators were mindful of due process rights for employers, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, said the bill gets around a loophole in earlier versions. Critics opposed the inclusion of the federal I-9 form because the federal government does not endorse any consequences.
“You’re hiring illegals? This state will have an aggressive monitoring and penalty system,” McConnell said.
Enforcement and penalties for workers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants would kick in as soon as the ink dries on the governor’s signature. Participation in the state and federal verification systems would be phased in beginning July 2009 for employers with at least 100 workers and extended to 2010 for smaller employers.
The bill is set to receive automatic final approval in the Senate today and to shoot over to the House for consideration first thing next week.
House Majority Leader Jim Merrill, R-Daniel Island, said the House will give it a full vetting. He hadn’t had the chance to review the provisions of the bill late Wednesday.
“I know we will take a very measured approach to the Senate’s overtures and give it every consideration,” Merrill said. “I just hope they are not being a little slippery with the creation of this new verification form.”
The House favors limiting employers to state driver’s licenses and the federal E-Verify to check worker verification, he said. The House, though, has never taken a vote on hiring standards for private employers.
Gov. Mark Sanford was heavily critical of the Senate, and he said he is depending on the House to straighten out the bill by requiring employers to use only E-Verify or state driver’s licenses.
“It’s clear now that while many in the Senate talk the talk on this front, few walk the walk,” Sanford said in a statement. He said Senate Republicans should have held strong against a filibuster by Democrats, and he said that by failing to take a recorded vote on the bill showed “political cowardice.”
“One might suggest that the only alternative is for every voter who cares about meaningful immigration reform to hold the entire Senate accountable until individual Senators have the courage to stand up and make known what they believe.”
By Yvonne Wenger
The Post and Courier
Thursday, May 1, 2008
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