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State's new immigration law has local businesses worried about enforcement

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The state legislature successfully passed what's being touted as the toughest immigration law in the nation earlier this month, but questions remain as to how it will be enforced.

The measure requires businesses to either check the status of new hires using E-Verify -- a controversial federal program used to determine whether workers are legal -- or make sure those workers have valid state driver's licenses or one from states similarly strict when it comes to obtaining a license.

For businesses with 100 or more employees, the law takes effect July 1, 2009. For those with fewer workers, that date gets pushed back to July 1, 2010.

But how the state will audit and investigate whether companies are complying is unclear. The law calls for both random audits and ones based on complaints against a specific business. A state agency has yet to draft regulations governing the audits.

A spokesman for the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said draft regulations would be published in the fall.

For members of the business community at a Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce event Wednesday, that isn't soon enough.

"Is that fair ... (that) I can't figure out what the requirements are and have to hire an immigration attorney?" one man asked.

Speakers tried to give as much advice as they could.

Otiose Rails of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce suggested businesses screen new hires based on their S.C. driver's licenses as opposed to E-Verify, which he said has a high margin of error.

About 4 percent of the names of citizens submitted to E-Verify are wrongly flagged as illegal immigrants, said Melissa Azallion, an immigration attorney at Nexsen Pruet. Ten percent of non-citizens are identified as in the country legally, she said.

Using E-Verify would keep employers safe from sanctions under the new law, she said, but would open them up to federal Department of Homeland Security audits.

She pointed out the pros and cons of using the system, saying there isn't a right answer for the type of verification employers should use.

After the state law is implemented, there's still a chance the courts will weigh in. Laws in Arizona and Oklahoma, which are similar to South Carolina's, have been challenged.

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