After a political struggle that lasted until the last day of the session, the State Legislature on Thursday passed one of the strongest illegal immigration bills in the nation. Once signed by the Governor, the new law will, among other things, require businesses with 10 or more employees to enroll in E-Verify, a free federal web-based program through which employers can check the employment eligibility of their new hires.

The primary complaint from the business community is that the E-Verify requirement will place an unreasonable burden on Georgia businesses as they struggle to emerge from the recession. From an AJC article on the topic:

“We’re coming out of [a] recession, and businesses are doing all they can do right now to stay afloat,” said Jann Moore, senior director of public policy and education for the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce. “To turn around and put the responsibility of another policy on business is the wrong thing to do. The timing could not be worse.”

In truth, the fears are completely unjustified. First, the compromise reached on Thursday exempts smaller businesses for which, arguably, E-Verify would cause the greatest burden. As I will explain in a minute, even the smallest businesses can comply with the law with minimal hassle.

Second, businesses of any size can reduce the actual cost of compliance to a couple of minutes and less than $6 per new hire, a far cry from the $127 per new employee claimed by the business lobbyists.

In 2007, I founded Verify I-9 LLC, which is a Designated Agent of the E-Verify program. In short, we conduct verifications for our business clients. We have hundreds of clients from many states including Georgia.

Our average client employs fewer than four workers and hires no more than one or two new employees a year. But even for our larger clients, participation in E-Verify is essentially hassle-free.

Verify I-9 currently charges no setup fee and no monthly fee; in other words, it costs nothing to enroll in E-Verify. By using a Designated Agent (aka Employer Agent), the employer avoids the tutorials and mastery tests that are required before access to the system is granted. By hiring us, the employer saves three to six hours of labor cost on the front end.

E-Verify adds just a couple of minutes to the hiring process—the time that it takes to drop the I-9 form into a fax machine. We submit the information from the I-9 to E-Verify and return the response by email, usually within one business day. The employer writes a verification number on the I-9 form and files it away.

It really is as simple as that.

Our charge for this service is currently as low as $5.95, and no more than $9.90 per new hire.

[Sign up now]

Over 400,000 businesses are enrolled in E-Verify with over 1,000 new enrollees each week. Hundreds of Georgia businesses participate including Gwinnett-based E.R. Snell Construction, Cash Register & POS Systems Support, Next Step Electrical Services, Surig & Son Specialized Masonry, Drywall & Acoustic Contractors and Phillip Blount & Associates.

When you hear the business community, liberal politicians and pro-amnesty advocates foretelling the demise of Georgia’s economy, know that the complaints are unfounded and amount to nothing more than posturing to preserve the status quo.

Georgia lawmakers pass illegal immigration crackdown  | ajc.com

As a Designated Agent of the E-Verify system, VerifyI9.com represents numerous small businesses including restaurants. Our low-volume employers simply fax us the completed I-9 form for new hires. We return the E-Verify authorization by email. All can be done in a couple of hours for less than $5 per new employee.

There may be some bugs to work out with the new South Carolina law but, with our E-Verify program for small business, compliance is a breeze.

Even though he’s happy to comply with the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act, he [restaurant owner Price Beall] said, completing the new verification process has proven frustrating, time-consuming and costly.

He estimates an office worker will have to devote three hours per week overseeing the issue, which could cost $5,000 to $6,000 per year.

islandpacket.com | Businesses, lawyers grapple with state’s new immigration law