South Carolina’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation forced one of the most popular Mexican restaurants in Columbia, South Carolina to shut down its operations. The Board carried out this penalty because of repeated illegal immigration law violations attributed to the establishment.

The Board closed down the local eatery for 10 days, after the restaurant repetitively violated South Carolina’s Illegal Immigration Reform Act with flagrant disregard.

It seems as if the restaurant did not take repeated LLR Board warnings seriously, continuously sneaking illegal employees onto the staff, and putting up false displays of compliance. Though the owners did not seem to expect to, they eventually paid a heavy price. In fact, this is the first complete shut down that South Carolina has seen because of this act.

The Board carried out this business license suspension after an investigation of the establishment occurred in October of 2010. After that investigation, the restaurant had to fire about five employees that were not US citizens. When the LLR board followed up later, they discovered that the restaurant had hired five new workers since the previous investigation, and that the management did not properly verify the new workers for employment eligibility.

In January, the restaurant complied somewhat by agreeing to fire all illegal workers and pay a fine. However, after a March audit, the Board found four new unverified workers again.

The LLR board has warned that if the restaurant continues to disregard their regulations and policies, that the next time, the restaurant will lose its business license for five years.

Ever since these laws went into effect in July 2009, the LLR board has completed audits on approximately 5,800 local businesses. In addition, the Board issued citations to approximately 500 employers regarding employment verification violations.

According to, LLR Board Director Catherine Templeton "Employers who choose to ignore the requirements of the state immigration law in their hiring practices will be penalized." Also according to Templeton, the board’s purpose for such strict adherence to policy is that since the current national economy is in such a poor state, that the board wants to, “ensure that every available job is held by an employee who is legally in this country and authorized to work”.

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According to a recent USA Today article, use of the E-Verify worker verification system is growing nationwide. The program is free for employers, and most checks are completed in a few seconds.

The voluntary federal program has seen a rapid growth in use this year, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records show. More than 1,000 employers are signing up for E-Verify each week on average, and employment checks are approaching 200,000 a week.

Halfway through this year 5.5 million worker checks have been made by employers through the E-Verify online service. In 2008, 6.6 million checks were made, twice the number in 2007. Overall, approximately 129,000 employers, representing half a million business locations, participate in the E-Verify program.

In fiscal year 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made more than 1,100 criminal arrests associated with workplace investigations, according to its website. Of those arrests, more than 100 were business owners, managers or supervisors.

The Obama administration recently postponed for a fourth time a requirement that all companies with federal contracts use the E-Verify program to verify the work status of new hires. The requirement is now scheduled for Sept. 8.

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