On May 13, 2011, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law House Bill #87, a comprehensive immigration law mandating employer verification compliance and establishing criminal penalties for various acts. Some have touted the law as one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation and claim the Georgia law is similar to many provisions in Arizona’s S.B. 1070 currently under legal challenge in the State of Arizona. On June 2, 2011, several civil rights and labor groups filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia challenging several provisions of the AZ-style legislation on constitutional grounds. This article will focus on the main employment verification provisions of the new law as well as various criminal provisions that could impact employers and/or their employees.

Employment Verification Requirement

All private employers with more than ten full-time employees will be required to register and participate in E-Verify. Those employers with fewer than ten employees will not be required to use E-Verify or to submit E-Verify compliance affidavits, though they will be required to file affidavits explaining their reason for the E-Verify exemption.

The number of full-time employees of a business determines if and when the employer must begin to comply with the E-Verify requirement. It is not clear at this point whether Georgia will count only employees in the State of Georgia for purposes of determining employee count, or whether all employees of a multi-state/multi-location business will be counted. The term “full-time employee” means an employee who works more than 35 hours per week. The effective dates for compliance are as follows...