South Carolina becomes the latest state to pass employer compliance legislation. Here is Governor Sanford's press release:

GOVERNOR THANKS HOUSE FOR MOVING FORWARD ON BILL, URGES LEGISLATURE TO GET BILL TO HIS DESK QUICKLY

Columbia, S.C. – January 30, 2008 – Governor Mark Sanford today issued the following statement on the S.C. House’s passage of S.392 and H.4400, matching bills aimed at addressing illegal immigration in our state that the governor called for during his State of the State address as part of his “First 30 Days” agenda:

“Since Washington has failed to act on this issue, I think that as a state we have to be very clear about not creating incentives for illegal behavior,” Gov. Sanford said. “I want to thank the House – in particular Speaker Harrell, Chairman Harrison, and over on the Senate side Senator Ritchie – for acting quickly to address this issue. It’s important because with other states in the Southeast contemplating or having passed similar legislation, if we don’t act we run the risk of becoming a sanctuary for illegal immigration. Legal immigration has been and continues to be part of what makes this country great, but at the same time we have to send a clear message that South Carolina won’t sanction illegal behavior with a wink and a nod. As we’ve long said, the ultimate fix for this problem will have to come from Washington, but this bill is a step forward and I’d urge both the House and Senate to get it to my desk as soon as possible.”

The bills would require all South Carolina employers doing business with the state to be able to verify the citizenship of their workers, and would deny business expense deductions to employers of illegal workers. In addition, the bills would create a state felony for harboring or transporting illegal aliens, would create more penalties for ID fraud in connection with illegal immigration, and would direct SLED to execute a memorandum of understanding with the federal government to serve as an auxiliary immigration enforcement agency.

The business license bill passes the Senate easily by 37 to 11 and now moves to the Indiana House of Representatives.

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt (R-MO) is pushing a bill to require all of the state's employers to check employees through E-Verify.

The Utah proposal would require public employers to use E-Verify. Similar laws are already in force in Georgia and Oklahoma.

The South Carolina House is poised to approve an immigration bill that has already passed in the Senate. If approved, the bill could become law by the end of next month, making South Carolina the latest state to pass significant immigration legislation. According to The State, the Columbia, South Carolina daily newspaper, the bill would have the following impact on employers:

• Contractors doing business with state and local government must verify employees’ legal work status through E-Verify.

• Local ordinances could not pre-empt state law.

• Businesses could not count wages paid to illegal immigrants as a deduction for state income tax purposes.

• Businesses would be required to withhold 6 percent of illegal immigrants’ wages to pay state income taxes.

• A worker fired from a job would be allowed to sue the employer if an illegal immigrant keeps his job.

• The state grand jury would be empowered to investigate identity fraud.

The bill is actually pretty broad. It would

- allow immigrants to be charged with identity

- require employers to use E-Verify

- allow the state to suspend business licenses of employers hiring unauthorized workers

Apartment vacancies rise as workers leave for other states.

Complaints starting to rise after slow start.

Arizona Supreme Court posts rules on how to file complaints.

Oregon becomes the latest state to establish an employers immigration reform coalition.

The bill, modeled after the Arizona law, must still pass on the Senate floor and in the Indiana House after that.

A proposal being considered in the Kansas House would require all employers to use E-Verify by January 1st. Business groups in neighboring Oklahoma are warning that Kansas should avoid the "minefield" of trying to enforce immigration law.

The Dallas Morning News reports on how Texas employers are nervous about the increasing enforcement pressure at the state's work sites. The paper reports that between 8 and 9 percent of the state's work force is unauthorized to work, more than twice the average of other states.

It's getting ugly in Arizona as "Hispanic Panic" sets in. Arizona's draconian employer law went in to effect just a few weeks ago and the fall out is already apparent as immigrants flee the state and employers are having mass layoffs. And it looks like market forces are creating an alternative "black economy" where employees are paid in cash and all worker protections go out the window.

An Arizona business owners coalition is pushing for legislative changes to Arizona's new business license law that would offer some protections against abusive prosecutions. The changes include prohibiting anonymous complaints under the new law, strengthening safe harbor protections for employers who comply with federal law and raise standards for prosecutors to make their cases against employers.

Anti-immigrant groups in Arizona are pushing in the opposite direction and trying to toughen the law to revoke business licenses after a single violation.

While employers in Arizona, the only other state with a business license revocation law, are fighting their new law in court, Tennessee employers have been silent and waiting in fear for the enforcement of the new law to begin.

On January 1st, Tennessee employers became subject to a new law that puts their business licenses at risk if they hire unauthorized immigrants. Using E-Verify is a defense for those charged under the new law. So one would think that employers across the state are signing up in droves to participate in the electronic verification system. But one would be wrong.

The arrest of 361 immigrants in a March 2007 raid at the Michael Bianco, Inc. leather-goods plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts has been highly controversial because of the separation of many children from their parents. Now the DHS Office of Inspector General is investigating the family separations and whether detainees should have been held in facilities closer to New Bedford (as opposed to Texas where dozens of detainees ended up).

The Arizona employer law that allows the state to revoke the business licenses of employers who knowingly or intentionally hire unauthorized workers went in to force on January 1st. The law also mandates that employers use E-Verify, DHS' electronic employment verification system.

The new law has been the subject of litigation and the judge reviewing the case said yesterday that he will issue a decision in the case in early February. The State of Arizona also agreed to hold off on any prosecutions under the new law until March (assuming the law is upheld by the judge).

Bender's has a copy of the court ruling.

Officers of this company are being charged criminally with hiring unauthorized workers. This article reports on efforts for force prosecutors to turn over an unredacted version of the search warrant so that the defense can potentially argue that the search was not proper.

Senator Mike Delph, the Indiana legislator pushing for an Arizona-style business license revocation law, is taking heat from those claiming there are racist motivations behind the proposal.

SSB attorney Greg Siskind is a speaker at American Conference Institute's upcoming Chicago program entitled "Worksite Immigration Compliance" which is being held at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. He will be speaking on pre-merger immigration due diligence during corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Last month, anti-immigration groups cheered that a judge refused to block the new business license/E-Verify law from going in to effect in Arizona. However, the ruling only dealt with procedural issues and the judge did not make a determination on the substantive questions surrounding the new law. Now Judge Wake is asking questions and it is far from clear that the bill's supporters will have sufficient answers. In particular, the judge is focusing on an employer's ability to appeal a decision, particularly when an employer can prove E-Verify is not accurate and an employee is, in fact, a permanent resident or a citizen. Remember, the recent Westat report showed that nearly 10% of naturalized US citizens in the country show up in E-Verify as being unlawfully present in the US. So there is more than just a slight chance there will be false positives. There will be many.

Arizona can probably fix this law to deal with the due process concerns and that would be the appropriate response (as opposed to attacking the lawyers who have raised these issues - the response that we're starting to now see).

The poll shows the public favors getting tough with employers, but also creating new mechanisms for employers to be able to legally hire needed workers.

It's a little early to make pronouncements about the new law, but Chavez makes some good points.

Due to an ongoing lawsuit from a coalition of labor and business organizations, the Social Security Administration announced last month that that it will delay mailing out ‘no-match’ letters this year to some 138,000 employers nationwide, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. The rule, first proposed by the Department of Homeland Security in August, gives employers 90 days to terminate workers whose paperwork could not be reconciled once they receive the no-match letter.

The rule is on hold after a federal district judge in California issued an injunction in October. The case is currently on appeal to the Ninth District Court of Appeals. Labor groups, including the AFL-CIO, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union argued in the lawsuit that legal workers and others might be fired unfairly. They also said the government did not consider the impact on small businesses.

The suit criticized the number of Social Security mismatches in the DHS database, which may target innocent citizens instead of the undocumented immigrants that DHS seek out. As a result, DHS said they would revise the rule. “We are in no way abandoning the no-match rule,” DHS spokeswoman Veronica Valdes said.

The owners of Golden State Fencing, one of the largest fence companies in the United States, have avoided threatened jail time after pleading guilty to knowingly hiring unauthorized workers.

Three former owners of a Maryland temp agency have pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of hiring unlawful immigrants and to surrender company assets. Previously, ICE agents arrested 69 employees who were found to be in the US illegally.

The Memphis Business Journal quotes SSB lawyer Greg Siskind extensively in this report on Tennessee's new business license license law.

This is a new angle. A Nebraska bill would targeting employers' tax packages offered to lure employers to the state.

The Indianapolis Business Journal reports on the Indiana proposal.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on the Minnesota effort.

This one is less likely to pass Constitutional muster than the states proposing to revoke business licenses.

A Kansas legislator is set to introduce a bill that would revoke business licenses for employers that hire unauthorized workers.

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