By Tim Smith • Capital bureau • Greenville Online.com • Published: July 11. 2010

COLUMBIA - Wes Crisp, the owner of CDS Landscaping in Greenville, isn't upset that state investigators have begun checking small businesses to be sure new employees are verified under the state's immigration law.

"I'm glad they're doing it," he said. "I'm not prejudiced against anybody, but if you are going to work in the country, you've got to go by the law. And if you're in this country illegally, you don't need to be in this country working because you are taking work from those who are legal."

His comments came after the first full week of enforcement of the state's immigration law for businesses with fewer than 100 workers.

Eight formal complaints have been filed thus far by citizens, and the state has ramped up its efforts by hiring 13 additional investigators, said Jim Knight, a spokesman for the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, the agency responsible for enforcing the law.

"We are in the field doing audits and complaint inspections among small businesses, and we're still doing that," he said. "It's too soon to say what the compliance will be."

State auditors began checking large businesses last summer to be sure each was verifying the legal status of new employees. Employers can use the federal government's electronic database, E-verify, the state's driver's license or another state's driver's license if that state's identification requirements are considered as stringent as South Carolina's.

Failure to verify new workers can subject businesses to financial penalties. Repeat violations, if found to be intentional, can shut down a business under the law that was considered the toughest in the nation at the time.

Investigators and auditors with LLR checked almost 1,900 businesses in the last year that had a 92 percent compliance rate, Knight said.

Because there are an estimated 110,000 small businesses in the state, Knight said the agency now has 23 investigators and is targeting certain types of industries, such as hotels, restaurants, landscaping and construction, where more immigrants are hired.

"We're also sampling the general employer population," he said.

Knight didn't give details of the eight complaints, except to say in each case the complaints were signed by the person making the allegation, as required by law.

Crisp, who has five full-time workers, said he is a stickler for following the law.

"We hired one one time that produced documents," he said. "I got the account to check and found out the information was fraudulent. That's how picky we are about checking people we suspect might be illegal."

He said he is aware some landscapers aren't so picky and is pleased the state is checking to make competition more fair between businesses.

"I believe in hiring whomever as long as they are eligible to be hired," he said. State Sen. Larry Martin of Pickens, one of the advocates of the immigration law, said he believes it is working as intended.

"I would like to think there has been a lot of self-compliance taking place already," he said. "I would expect the complaints to be more numerous than what they have received thus far."

For all of last year, Knight said, the agency had about 11 formal complaints. In eight of those cases, the allegations were unfounded, he said. In two cases, the employees in question had quit and in one case the employee admitted to being in the country illegally and was terminated.

Martin said he expects some businesses to turn in some competitors they believe are using illegal workers.

"I do believe it will make a huge difference in attitudes toward acceptance of illegal immigration in our state that has developed over time among employers," he said. "I think this is going to turn the clock back on any type of acceptance."

Frank Knapp, executive director of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said he hasn't heard of any complaints about enforcement of the new law.

"It's really unfair if someone is using a lower wage scale, because they are breaking the law," he said. "I think for the vast majority of small businesses, this is not going to be an issue."

Knight said his agency received 100-200 telephone calls last year alleging businesses were using illegal workers but most of them concerned small business. The telephone calls aren't considered to be formal complaints.

He said investigators last year found about a dozen cases where large employers had illegal workers on their payroll and in each case immediately fired the employees.

LLR assessed about $700,000 in penalties last year for violations but waived all of the fines but one for $11,500 because the employers acted within 72 hours to verify or terminate the workers, Knight said.

Most of the violations, he said, involved employers who took two to three weeks to verify new hires instead of the five days as required by law.

Lawmakers set aside $2 million for this year's enforcement effort, up from $750,000 last year.