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COLUMBIA -- A Senate committee was urged Tuesday to curb the flow of illegal residents into South Carolina, while a business group warned lawmakers to leave the issue to Congress.

Opening public hearings on the issue, the six-member Senate study committee appointed to research illegal immigration heard from federal officials and representatives of several groups advocating reform.

The panel is considering legislation that would mirror what Georgia has done to attack illegal immigration.

Sen. Jim Ritchie of Spartanburg, chairman of the panel, said immigration reform is "one of the highest priorities of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the General Assembly" for next year.

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Some speakers told him why it should be.

Illegal workers take American jobs, suppress wages, commit fraud and cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year, they said.

Roan Garcia-Quintana, executive director of the reform group Americans Have Had Enough, told the senators that illegal immigrants are taking American jobs, including summer jobs for high school students.

He urged the committee to use harsher sanctions, such as removal of a company's business license or jail terms, to deter executives.

"It's not about jobs Americans will not take," he said. "It's about jobs Americans will not take for $2 to $3 per hour."

Marcia Purday, vice president of communications for the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, urged restraint.

"This is a federal issue," she said, "and we do not need a hodgepodge of different laws to deal with this issue. We certainly do not need to put something in place in South Carolina that would become a burden to businesses to implement."

Irma Santana, program director for the Coalition for New South Carolinians, agreed, saying lawmakers have only filed punitive legislation that has little impact on the flow of illegal immigrants into the state.

"We know they are here and will not go away," she said.

It's been a costly flow, said Jack Martin, a representative of the national group Federation for American Immigration Reform, which helped Georgia craft its reform bill.

He said that after looking at figures for South Carolina, he believes the annual cost in education, hospital emergency care and incarceration of illegal immigrants amounts to $185 million annually. Most of that cost -- $144 million -- he said, goes for educating illegal immigrants' children.

He estimated the state has 76,000 illegal residents, an estimate which he called "very conservative."

Hard numbers are difficult to come by, though it seems clear the immigrant population as a whole is expanding. South Carolina has seen the greatest gain of foreign-born residents since the 2000 U.S. Census among Southeastern states, up 47 percent, with seven out of 10 being Hispanic immigrants.

The University of South Carolina's Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies estimates the state's Hispanic population has grown to between 400,000 and 500,000.

An Urban Institute study estimated there were as many as 75,000 illegal residents in the state in 2002, mostly of Hispanic origin.

The legislation being considered by the panel is modeled after a Georgia reform bill. It would require all public agencies, their contractors and subcontractors to verify an employee's citizenship by participating in a federal program that compares employee forms to certain databases, such as one maintained by Social Security.

The legislation also would ask the State Law Enforcement Division to participate in immigration training and would screen jails for illegal immigrants, allow state prosecutors to go after the crimes of sexual or labor servitude and regulate immigration service companies.

Joel Sawyer, a spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, said the governor is in favor of reforms similar to the Georgia bill.

Ritchie said he is a proponent of legal immigration but wants to stop problems from illegal immigration while the state is in what he called a "transition period."

One idea that interested the panel is being tried by various state police and local sheriffs nationwide.

Under federal law, police agencies can sign an agreement with Homeland Security, which houses immigration enforcement efforts, to be trained and help identify illegal immigrants.

Local trained officers can then catch illegal immigrants who might be arrested or in jail and might otherwise escape federal immigration agents.

"It's a force multiplier for us," said Brock Nicholson, a deputy director for the agency's regional office in Atlanta. "They help us do our job."

Ritchie asked federal officials also to find out what discretion lawmakers can give judges in sentencing so that illegal immigrants don't have to wait until their sentence is completed before being deported.

Now, officials said, they don't deport illegal immigrants until after the state has finished prosecuting them and they have served their sentences.

Mark Thies, co-director of South Carolinians for Immigration Moderation, said his group wants to find ways not to deport immigrants but to discourage illegal immigrants.

Thies also quoted from South Carolina workers who told him they or others they knew had been replaced by illegal workers to save companies money.

"If we do something now, we can reward companies that do the right thing," he said.