A coalition of business groups recently endorsed a piece of federal legislation that would require employers to verify the eligibility of employees to work in the US , The Nashville Business Journal reports.  The New Employee Verification Act, sponsored by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), would require employers to enter employee identification data through their state’s ‘new hire’ reporting program, an electronic portal already widely used to track down parents who owe child support.  The legislation gives businesses the option of conducting a background check and collecting a thumbprint or other biometric to determine a worker’s identity and prevent the use of a phony Social Security number or driver’s license.  

The endorsing coalition, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) says the verification would be more favorable than the government’s voluntary E-Verify system because the "new hire" database is more reliable than the databases used by E-Verify.  SHRM, which includes the National Association of Manufacturers, National Association of Home Builders, as well as several other business groups, conducted a poll in January in which 85% of its respondents think a mandatory national employment verification system is an important characteristic of a system to make sure only legal workers get jobs.  

Despite the criticisms against the program, Department of Homeland Security continues to promote E-Verify, in which employers check the Social Security or visa numbers from new employees against government databases.  The government will soon issue a proposed regulation that would require all federal contractors to use E-Verify, according to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.   

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Mississippi governor Haley Barbour signed a bill last week which will require the state’s employers to use a federal database to check immigrants’ status.  According to The Associated Press, the bill will become law Jan. 1, 2009.  It will require employers to use the US Homeland Security electronic verification system (more commonly known as "E-Verify") to check whether new hires are legal residents.  Employers who hire undocumented immigrants could lose their business license for a year and any state contract work for up to three years.  Any undocumented immigrants found working in the state could face a one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $10,000.  

Despite the planned usage of E-Verify, Barbour is wary of its consistency. "I am concerned about mandating the E-Verify system as the sole source from which an employer in Mississippi can verify a potential employee’s eligibility, especially since the federal government itself has said E-Verify is not a reliable system," Barbour said   in a news release.   

Immigrants’ advocates had called on Barbour to veto the bill, which they said targets Latinos.  Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, said he is appalled that Barbour signed the legislation.  "This is the grossest form of discrimination and it’s the most racist legislation that’s been passed since the Sovereignty Commission and the Jim Crow laws," Chandler said of the bill.  The Sovereignty Commission was Mississippi ’s state-sponsored agency that spied on civil rights activists.  It existed from 1956 to 1973.  

Barbour, who won a second term in 2007, said early in his campaign that immigration is strictly a federal issue.  He also said Mississippi ’s Hurricane Katrina recovery had gotten a boost from immigrant workers.  But in the final weeks of the campaign, Barbour sharply changed his stance on the issue, running numerous ads saying he would enforce immigration laws in the state.  

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Republican lawmakers in South Carolina are pushing a bill into the state’s Congress, which would require anyone registering to vote to show a passport, birth certificate or naturalization, The Associated Press reports.  Support ers of the bill say it will protect elections by ensuring undocumented immigrants can’t cast a ballot.  Critics argue that it’s just a GOP move to hassle people who might vote for Democrats.   

"The only people stifled from voting are those who can’t legally vote," said Rep. Alan Clemmons, who lead the subcommittee that approved the measure earlier this year.  Clemmons said requiring residents to verify what they put on their voter application form is not a burden.  "It’s a simple matter to produce a birth certificate," Clemmons said, adding he’ll volunteer to help secure one for any South Carolinian without it.  

But Democrats contend poor and rural residents are less likely to have a birth certificate, much less a passport, and that getting either takes time and money.  Some older residents weren’t even born in a hospital, said Brett Bursey, executive director of the state Progressive Network.  "The measure is aimed squarely at suppressing the Democratic vote."   

In January, the Democratic presidential primary drew 87,000 more South Carolina voters than the Republican primary, a stunning figure in a state where the GOP controls both chambers of the Legislature, all but one statewide office, and six of eight seats in the US House and Senate.  The latest Census estimate puts South Carolina ’s Hispanic and Latino population at roughly 130,000.  But advocates say it’s closer to over three times that number, and climbing.  Bursey accused Republicans of using the fear surrounding undocumented immigration to suppress Democratic votes.  "Today’s boogeyman is immigrants," he said.  

The bill’s author and sponsor, Rep. Gloria Haskins, said her intent was not to make everyone submit proof of citizenship when registering, but only people born in another country, as she was.  Haskins, who emigrated from Colombia with her family at 12 years old, said she’s more concerned with immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens trying to vote, and she pledged to amend the bill.  "I don’t want to stifle the process at all," Haskins said.  "My intention is to maintain the integrity of the process.  If you’re born here, you don’t need to prove you can vote."