Ohio’s employment bill would require citizenship verification

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio lawmakers are moving forward with a bill that aims to verify the eligibility of workers, but could also help identify workers who have entered the United States without legal permission.

“Partly, that’s because we look at our southern border and see it as a real problem,” Rep. said DJ Swearingen (R-Huron).

House Bill 327 is sponsored by Swearingen and Rep. Scott Wiggam (R-Wayne County). The bill was reported out of committee 10-2 with one Republican and one Democrat voting against moving it to the House floor.

The legislation would require employers with 75 or more employees and non-residential construction contractors to use E-Verify to confirm employment eligibility.

“It’s a matter of justice,” Swearingen said. “Those employers who are doing it the right way should be rewarded for hiring a legal workforce, and those workers who are doing it the right way by being here legally to work should also be rewarded.”

E-Verify is a federal online system that confirms whether someone is eligible to work in their state. The system flags people as minors or non-U.S. workers, and Swearingen said it shouldn’t create an additional burden on employers.

“All the information you need to enter into the E-Verify system, employers already have on the i-9 form they have for most employees,” he said.

More than 18,000 employers in Ohio have already registered to use E-Verify, and in one year, there were nearly 6,000 uses of the system. But Democratic leadership said there are still some things to iron out in the bill.

“I think there are concerns, especially if it can be operationalized, especially by some of the smaller contractors,” Ohio House Minority Leader Rep. Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said.

The Ohio Contractors Association opposes the bill. The association declined to do an interview at this time because it said there are still too many moving parts in the legislation.

But in written testimony to the committee, the association said that while it does not condone the employment of undocumented workers, the legislation is inconsistent, noting, for example, that the housing construction industry is exempt from the bill.

“There can always be more changes to the process as we go along,” Swearingen said. “But I think [the criticism] it’s a bit unfair because that’s a really broad group of construction workers who will be subject to the bill.”

The bill has penalties for non-compliance, including fines of up to $10,000 and a one-year exclusion from government contracts.

The bill now awaits a floor vote; there are still two sessions of the House of Representatives before the legislator’s vacation for the summer.