U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Launches Nationwide I-9 Audit Initiative
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the agency responsible for investigating immigration violations and enforcing immigration laws at the worksite. Recently, ICE has launched a new initiative to audit and inspect employers’ hiring records to determine employment eligibility verification laws and regulations compliance. On July 1, 2009, ICE issued 652 Notices of Inspection (NOIs) to businesses nationwide.
ICE announced that they will focus on criminal prosecution of employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers and that the agency “will use all available tools, including civil fines and debarment, to penalize and deter illegal employment.” ICE has also pledged to “remove incentives to enter the country illegally by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.”
One such company audit resulted in no criminal charges against the employer and no workers arrested. However, ICE issued a fine of approximately $150,000 and ordered the company to re-verify the work authorization of approximately 1,800 of their seemingly undocumented workers. The company was issued a mandate to terminate the employment of all workers who could not document their work authorization.
It appears ICE may favor the I-9 audits over immigration raids. Employers must take these I-9 audits seriously, as inspection could reveal that the employer has knowingly hired or is continuing to hire undocumented workers, is harboring undocumented workers, has wage and labor violations, is laundering money, and/or is evading payment of employment taxes all of which could lead to criminal warrants.
On February 26, 2008, the Attorney General Mukasey announced higher civil fines against employers who violate federal immigration laws. Under this rule, civil fines increased by as much as $5,000. Under this rule and applicable law, civil penalties for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act were adjusted for inflation. The minimum penalty for knowing employment of an unauthorized alien increased by $100, from $275 to $375. Some of the higher civil penalties increased by $1,000; for example, the maximum penalty for a first violation increased from $2,200 to $3,200. The biggest increase under the rounding mechanism raises the maximum civil penalty for multiple violations from the prior $11,000 to $16,000. These penalties are assessed on a per-alien basis; thus, if an employer knowingly employs, or continues to employ, five unauthorized aliens, that could result in five fines.
All U.S. employers are required to use the revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, (Rev. 02/02/09). The revision date can be found in the lower right-hand corner of the forms. Previous versions of Form I-9 may no longer be used. Employers may only accept documents on the “List of Acceptable Documents” on the revised Form I-9 (Rev. 02/02/09). When an employee must be re-verified because employment authorization has expired, employers must use the revised Form I-9 with its new List of Acceptable Documents. An employer may not re-verify the employee by completing Section 3 – Updating and Re-verification on the previous version of Form I-9.