Just days after Utah passed its employer sanctions law, Mississippi now becomes the latest state to go down the path of independently enforcing immigration law. Governor Haley Barbour still needs to sign the bill, but indications are that he will do so.

The Mississippi Employment Protection Act requires ALL employers in the state to use E-Verify. The statute separately requires contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify, though this seems redundant given the overall requirement that every employer use the system.

Employers who terminate US citizen or permanent resident employees while continuing to employ unauthorized immigrants shall be liable for unlawful discrimination. Use of E-Verify shall be a safe harbor for employers from liability under this provision.

Third party employers must document to companies to whom they send workers that the employer is registered in E-Verify.

All government agencies as well as private employers with more than 250 employees must be using E-Verify by July 1, 2008. Companies with 100 to 250 employees must use E-Verify by July 1, 2009. Companies with 30 to 100 employees must use the system by July 1, 2010. All other employers must use it by July 1, 2011.

Violating employers are subject to the cancellation of contracts with the state and a bar on contracting with the state for three years. Employers are also subject to the revocation of a business license for up to three years.

The bill contains a shocking provision that is unique in the country and which will no doubt trigger a court challenge. It reads as follows:

(c) (i) It shall be a felony for any person to accept or perform employment for compensation knowing or in reckless disregard that the person is an unauthorized alien with respect to employment during the period which the unauthorized employment occurred. Upon conviction, a violator shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) nor more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), or both.”

The bill would allow the state to prosecute and imprison any unauthorized immigrant found to be working, something that appears to go way beyond a state's authority with respect to regulating immigration.

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