Following the August 15 veto of HB 786, the “RECLAIM NC Act” by Governor Pat McCory, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to override his decision to veto the bill which creates a loophole to hire illegal alien workers in the state.<\/p>\n
Last Tuesday — September 3, the NC House voted 84-32 to enact\u00a0HB 786<\/a>. The following day, with less than six minutes of consideration, the NC Senate overrode the veto by a vote of 39 to 5<\/a>. With the necessary three-fifths vote to override the veto in both houses achieved, HB 786 became law effective immediately.<\/p>\n HB 786 amends North Carolina’s E-Verify mandate<\/a> that was passed in 2011. Prior to the passage of HB 786, North Carolina law required employers with 25 or more employees to verify the employment eligibility status of all employees through the E-Verify program unless the employee worked less than 90 days in a 12-consecutive-month period. The new law<\/a> increases the exemption from 90 days to 9 months.<\/p>\n E-Verify<\/a> is a free, web-based system through which employers may verify the work authorization of new hires through existing federal records. In 1996,\u00a0Congress created E-Verify<\/a> in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IRIRA) as a way to help employers comply with the federal ban on hiring unauthorized aliens.<\/p>\n The change was championed by business interests who desire to skirt federal law and utilize a cheap illegal labor force. Although these employers must still comply with the I-9 work authorization process under federal law, the employers prefer the I-9 process because it is easy to cheat and unreliable. The I-9 process merely requires employers review documents submitted by the employee and make a self-determination whether the documents appear valid on their face.<\/p>\n By comparison, E-Verify effectively catches almost all employment related fraud because it verifies the documentation submitted by the employee is valid and the name, Social Security Number, date of birth, gender and photographic identification provided match in several federal government databases.<\/p>\n