A get-tough Mississippi anti-immigration law that goes into effect next month drew dozens of advocates to the state Capitol on Thursday to protest the legislation they say targets Latino workers.

The business community also is concerned about the legislation because employers could face sanctions for failing to verify the citizenship of workers they hire.

The bill, which becomes law Jan. 1, requires employers to use the U.S. Homeland Security electronic verification system to check whether new hires are legal residents. Employers who hire illegal immigrants could lose their business license for a year and any state contract work for up to three years.

Any illegal immigrant found working in the state could face a one-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $10,000.

“It’s intended to scare Latinos out of the state,” said Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance.

Immigrants, their families and members of MIRA and the Southeast Immigrants Rights Network carried handmade signs that read, “Peace,” and, “It’s a crime to work in Mississippi,” as they walked about a mile to the Capitol in downtown Jackson.

Some in the group were among those arrested in August during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at Howard Industries in Laurel. Nearly 600 of the plant’s workers were rounded up in the sweep, the largest workplace raid in U.S. history.

Salvador Velasco, 32, who was arrested in the raid, paid a $10,000 bond to get out of a federal detention center in Jena, La., but he has to return to Mexico within the next two months. He said immigration policies have been unfair because he’s taking his two young children back to Mexico although they were born in the U.S.

“You’re driving U.S. citizens out of the country,” Velasco said through an interpreter. “Our kids have to eat.”

Chandler said advocates will press lawmakers during the legislative session that begins in January to either repeal or change the new anti-immigration law. Another criticism of the legislation is that it relies on a federal database that’s been unreliable in the past.

The law is being phased in over several years. Businesses that employ at least 100 workers must meet the requirements by July 1. But companies that employ fewer workers have until July 1, 2010.

Ron Aldridge, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said he’ll spend the next few months urging lawmakers to tweak the law.

He said small businesses don’t have the human resource departments to check the legal status of all new hires.

“When you’re looking at all the different cards from the federal government, which ones are valid and which ones are not, most of us small businesses don’t know for sure,” Aldridge said Thursday.

Aldridge also said the legislation holds contractors accountable for subcontractors who hire illegal immigrants, and that’s a provision his organization wants amended.