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Aaron Sharockman
By Aaron Sharockman May 6, 2011
Back to Require all Florida employers to use E-Verify system

No E-Verify requirement this year

Back in the 2010 Republican primary for governor, we heard over and over from candidate Rick Scott about his get-tough approach on illegal immigration.

It was a way to contrast himself with his primary opponent, then Attorney General Bill McCollum, who Scott accused of being soft on the issue. Specifically, Scott vowed to bring an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida, fight any proposal for amnesty for people living in the United States illegally and require all employers in the state to run their employees through a federal system that tries to ascertain if they are in the country legally.

We're dealing with the first two promises in other items. Here, we're focusing on Gov. Scott's promise regarding E-Verify.

Here's what his campaign website said under "border security."

"Rick will require all Florida employers to use the free E-Verify system to ensure that their workers are legal."

The E-Verify system is a federal database that compares information from a person's employment paperwork to Homeland Security and Social Security records. Employers who use the program can weed out immigrants not eligible to work in this country. Once employers hire workers, they run their names through the E-Verify database. If the records match, the new employees are eligible to work. If they don't match, the database notifies the employers, who must then give the workers eight days to provide sufficient proof of eligibility.

As we mentioned in a previous update on this promise, Scott issued an executive order his first day in office requiring state workers to be checked through the system, though most agencies already used the system.

Attempts to extend that edict to all Florida employers -- as Scott promised -- occurred during the 2011 legislative session. But nothing materialized.

The closest the state got was an amendment to an immigration bill offered by state Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine. In the waning days of session, on May 3, 2011, Thrasher tried to insert a strong incentive for Florida employers to use the E-Verify system -- use it, or risk being fined.

Thrasher's amendment to SB 2040 would have created noncriminal fines for employers who are found to have employed a nondocumented worker and had not screened that employee through the E-Verify system. But even in a Republican-dominated Senate where the GOP holds 28 of the 40 seats, the amendment was defeated 23-16.

Scott ran into an unwilling partner in the Legislature when it came to requiring Florida employers to use the E-Verify system. But Scott promised to require E-Verify throughout the state knowing it would require legislative approval, so we cannot offer him mercy. We rate this Promise Broken.

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