Jul 12

Written by: The VISANOW Legal Team
7/12/2011 9:37 AM 

With the lack of comprehensive immigration reform from the Obama Administration, numerous states have taken creating immigration reform into their own hands. Although highly controversial and questioned as unconstitutional, other states such as Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina and Louisiana have followed and continue to follow in Arizona’s footsteps with the controversial SB10170 legislation. E-Verify, an employment verification system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA), plays a large role in all of these local laws to verify legality. Below is a summary of state-level E-Verify legislation:

Arizona —As one of the first states to mandate E-Verify for all employers, Arizona’s SB1070 has once again been approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. SB1070 allows police to check legal documents from everyone they suspect is in this country illegally.

Alabama —Alabama passed a HB56 that would require employees, as well as students, to use E-Verify to verify their legal status. Recently, a new addition to the bill allows for police officers to pull over anyone that looks suspicious and can ask for their documents. Many are angered and believe that Alabama has gone too far with this law. They think this bill is unconstitutional and will lead to racial profiling similar to Arizona. This could possibly be the toughest immigration law in the nation.

Tennessee —Unlike Arizona and Alabama, Tennessee has passed HB670 which allows employers to use various forms of identification as validation instead of exclusively using E-Verify. Employers are allowed to accept documents ranging from driver’s licenses to birth certificates. This law will take effect starting January 1, 2012; employers with 5 or fewer employees will be exempt from this while all others will have to comply.

Mississippi —Mississippi recently implemented a new E-Verify tool called Records and Information from DMVs for E-Verify (RIDE). RIDE enables employees’ driver’s license to be used as identification instead of filling out I-9s. This new system hopes to combat fraud while using E-Verify.

South Carolina —Recently, Governor Nikki Haley passed an immigration bill S20 that will cost South Carolina $1.3 million in creating an illegal enforcement unit with 12 full time officials. With this new law, Haley is requiring all employers to verify their employees are legal by using E-Verify as well as allowing police to check the citizenship of people they deem criminals or they stop for any reason. This bill was passed on June 21 with a 69-43 vote, favored by the Republicans. On the opposing side, Democrats believe this bill will encourage racial profiling and that immigration reform should be a federal legislation.

Louisiana —Louisiana has also jumped on the E-Verify bandwagon for the state’s private and public businesses. Governor Bobby Jindal signed two legislations into law, HB342 and HB646. HB342 requires that all local and state contractors must use E-Verify to verify that all employees are legally documented. HB646 mandates that all private businesses must check all employees with E-Verify to make sure no illegal workers are hired. Governor Jindal believes it is time for Louisiana to take the initiative with immigration policies in lieu of federal reform.  As in other states that have passed immigration Bills, people are angry about the sudden new law and are protesting against it.

Many governors are hoping that if numerous states begin passing their own laws on illegal immigration, that the federal government will make one illegal immigration law state-wide. Further, since January, nine states including the ones listed above have mandated E-Verify for employers including Florida, Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia. Of those states, four (Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah) have created SB1070-like laws. With the patchwork of state-level legislation, the need for comprehensive immigration reform is highlighted and becomes more critical.

For more information on state-wide immigration laws or E-Verify legislations, please contact VISANOW. Timely updates on legislation can be found on VISANOW’s blog or our other social media outlets, Twitter and Facebook.


Photo attribution: uscis.gov