The South Carolina legislature has amended the state’s “Illegal Aliens and Private Employment” law to require that every employer verify their new hires through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system beginning January 1, 2012. Employers who fail to comply can lose their business licenses.

E-Verify is a free Internet based system that compares the information an employee provides on the Form I-9 — Employment Eligibility Verification — against millions of government records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

It generally provides results in 3 to 5 seconds. If the information matches, the employee is eligible to work in the United States. If there’s a mismatch, E-Verify will alert the employer and the employee will be allowed to work while he or she resolves the problem.  The South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation is charged with conducting random audits of employers to assure compliance.

James E. Knight, administrator of the Office of Immigrant Worker Compliance within the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, will brief Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce members on September 21^st at a special Brown Bag Lunch on the changes in the law, and the E-Verify system.

Knight said it’s important for business owners to learn exactly what’s required of them, and he encouraged all employers to attend.

The immigration law passed by the state legislature in 2008 gave employers options in verifying their new hires, said Knight. They could either use the federal database, E-Verify, or get a valid driver’s license from South Carolina or one of 26 other approved states. 

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in May determined that states could mandate that employers verify new hires, but they could only require employers to do so using the E-Verify system, he said.

“To make the South Carolina immigration law constitutional, the state legislature had to amend the law in June to require that all employers use the E-Verify system to verify new hires. The legislature wanted to give employers time to come into compliance, so they set an effective date of January 1, 2012, for compliance,” Knight said.

After January 1, 2012, employers who fail to verify all new hires through E-Verify risk losing their business licenses. 

Click Here for more information about this important Brown Bag Lunch Event.