ICE Inspections are up 10x in 2011, And they Arrested 196 Employers and $7 million in fines - Last Year

Kibble said that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE performed 2,746 worksite investigations, more than double the 1,191 two years earlier. It arrested 196 employers and fined employers nearly $7 million. That compares to fines of $675,209 in 2008.

AP) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is launching a new round of worksite investigations, maintaining the pressure on businesses to make sure they are hiring only people who can legally work in the U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday it has notified 1,000 companies of upcoming audits of their I-9s, forms that new employees complete, and of the identification documents those employees provided to show they are eligible to work in the U.S.

"The inspections will touch on employers of all sizes and in every state in the nation — no one industry is being targeted nor is any one industry immune from scrutiny," ICE said in a statement. The agency declined to name the businesses to be inspected.

The latest round of audits will differ slightly from previous ones. Agents previously were told to audit a certain number each of small, medium and large businesses, said Dawn Lurie, who advises businesses on immigration compliance.

But this time agents are being encouraged to investigate larger companies if that's where tips and leads are pointing them. A new Employment Compliance Inspection Center in the Washington suburb of Crystal City, Va., means they'll have more auditors and other resources for those larger investigations.

Audits are usually performed at the state in which a company is headquartered, but agents are being told they can audit other parts of the company if their records review shows there may be problems beyond the headquarters, Lurie said.

Lurie said the new focus for the audits is a sign that ICE is becoming more sophisticated in its worksite enforcement.

The Obama administration's worksite strategy differs from that of the Bush administration, which focused on high-profile raids that led to arrests of hundreds of workers at a single work site.

ICE still conducts raids, but they are smaller and less visible. The current administration also has been criticized for auditing mostly small businesses.

Lurie said she thinks the administration's audit tactic is having an effect.

"I do think businesses should be more frightened. Companies across the U.S. need to take compliance seriously. It's ridiculous to say you are not doing anything . we will wait until the federal government knocks at door," she said.

Companies can take small, inexpensive steps to help themselves, she said.

The administration has investigated records of such companies as Krispy Kreme and Abercrombie and Fitch. An immigration official has said such audits doubled in 2010 over 2008.

But critics say the administration's tactic isn't going far enough. At a recent House subcommittee hearing, Republican lawmakers suggested returning to raids and questioned whether more people not legally working could be detained and deported.

ICE assistant secretary Kumar Kibble told the House critics that the audits could not be assessed in a vacuum and are part of a larger enforcement strategy that helped bring about the record deportation of nearly 393,000 people last year, he said.

Kibble said that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, ICE performed 2,746 worksite investigations, more than double the 1,191 two years earlier. It arrested 196 employers and fined employers nearly $7 million. That compares to fines of $675,209 in 2008.

The Rest @ CBS

PointHR Conducts I-9 Audits

As a former HR Director,now the franchise owner of PointHR DFW. I wish I had known about PointHR when I was an HR Director.

We specialize in taking the administrative work of your employee onboarding so that your HR team can do what they do best, work face to face with your employees.

As you know the I-9 is a record of the verification of employment process, and is required to be made available to officials of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, and the Special Council for Immigration-related Unfair Labor Practices. 911 and recent immigration issues have made the inspection of these documents more frequent, so we have developed a way to take this burden off your team.

We are a federally-approved Designated Agent of the Department of Homeland Security, but we are not required to report any deficiencies in your current system.

This means we can do an I-9 Audit to help you get ready for any coming inspection,or just to get an independent set of eyes to review your process and documents.

We have a proprietary automated I-9 Gathering, verifying and and tracking process. Further, we can reduce your costs by grouping  audit costs into a package of employment services which include, court checks, work confirmations, drug screens and a full set of background checks.

Attached is more information. I will be contacting you shortly to see if I can assist your team with this or other distracting administrative processes.


Lee Royal
Owner
PointHR DFW
972-538-5912 x3027
972-795-8183 (Cell)
866-661-1500 x 3027
http://pointhrdfw.com
Email me
http://pointhr.com/

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf

Pre Employment Checks - More than Public Record Database Searches

A number of annual reports, including BDO Stoy Hayward's Fraudtrack 4[1] and CIFAS's [2] (the UK's fraud prevention service) 'The Enemy Within' have showed a rising level of major discrepancies and embellishments on CVs over previous years. Such business fraud cost United Kingdom businesses $1.4 billion in 2005.[3].

• Almost half (48%) of organizations with fewer than 100 staff experienced problems with vetted employees.
• Thirty-nine percent of UK organizations have experienced a situation where their vetting procedures have allowed an employee to be hired who was later found to have lied or misrepresented themselves in their application.

Since the onset of the Financial crisis of 2007–2010, the level of fraud has almost doubled and some experts have predicted that it will escalate further. Annual research has also shown that the number of applicants lying on their applications has been increasing steadily since the summer of 2007 when the financial crisis of 2007–2010 began. As of August 2009, nearly one in 5 applicants have major lie or discrepancy on their application.

The marketLarger companies are more likely to outsource than their smaller counterparts – the average staff size of the companies who outsource is 3,313 compared to 2,162 for those who carry out in-house checks.

• Financial services firms had the highest proportion of respondents who outsource the service, with over a quarter( 26%) doing so, compared to an overall average of 16% who outsource vetting to a third party provider.

The construction and property industry showed the lowest level of outsourcing, with 89% of such firms in the sample carrying out checks in-house, making the overall average 16%. This can increase over the years.

Character Reference Check

Gaps in employment history

Identity and Address Verification - whether the applicant is who he or she claims to be. Generally includes verification of the candidate’s present and previous addresses. Can include a money laundering, identity and terrorist check and one to verify the validity of passports.

• Whether an applicant holds a directorship
• Credit History - bankruptcies
• Criminal History Report.

Regulation

The Financial Services Authority states in their Training & Competence guidance that regulated firms should have.

• Adequacy of procedures for taking into account knowledge and skills of potential recruits for the role
• Adequacy of procedures for obtaining sufficient information about previous activities and training
• Adequacy of procedures for ensuring that individuals have passed appropriate exams or have appropriate exemptions
• Adequacy of procedures for assessing competence of individuals for sales roles

The Financial Services Authority’s statutory objectives:

• Protecting consumers
• Maintaining market confidence
• Promoting public awareness
• Reducing financial crime

The FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) is the most important regulation governing background screening.

There are a variety of important laws regulating the dissemination and legal use of this information. Most notably, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulates the use of consumer reports (which it defines as information collected and reported by third party agencies) as it pertains to adverse decisions, notification to the applicant, and destruction and safekeeping of records.

If a consumer report is used as a factor in an adverse hiring decision, the applicant must be presented with a

• “pre-adverse action disclosure,”
• a copy of the FCRA summary of rights,
• a “notification of adverse action letter.”

Individuals are entitled to know the source of any information used against them including a credit reporting company. Individuals must also consent in order for the employer to obtain a credit report.

Florida Law

Florida House Bill H0775, passed in 1999, provides protection for employers from negligent hiring liabilities, provided they attempt to conduct certain screening procedures. Employers who follow these steps will be presumed not to have been negligent when hiring if a background check fails to reveal any records on an applicant. These steps are]:

• Ordering a Florida state criminal record check
• Taking reasonable efforts to contact an applicants past employers
• Asking the applicant on the application if they have been convicted of a crime, date of crime and penalty imposed
• Asking the applicant on the application if they were the defendant in a civil action for intentional tort
• A driving record must be ordered if it is relevant to the performed work
• The employer must interview the applicant

Types of checks

There are a variety of types of investigative searches that can be used by potential employers. Many commercial sites will offer specific searches to employers for a fee. Services like these will actually perform the checks, supply the company with adverse action letters, and ensure compliance throughout the process.

It is important to be selective about which pre-employment screening agency you use. A legitimate company will be happy to explain the process to you.

• Many employers choose to search the most common records such as criminal records, driving records, and education verification.
• Other searches such as sex offender registry, credential verification, skills assessment, reference checks, credit reports and Patriot Act searches are becoming increasingly common.
• Employers should consider the position in question when determining which types of searches to include, and should always use the same searches for every applicant being considered for one.

Reasons

1. They are frequently conducted to confirm information found on an employment application or résumé/curriculum vitae.
2. One study showed that half of all reference checks done on prospective employees differed between what the job applicant provided and what the source reported.
3. They may also be conducted as a way to further differentiate potential employees and pick the one the employer feels is best suited for the position.
4. As workplace violence becomes more of an issue and other serious concerns since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, employers are becoming more concerned about the people they hire.
5. Employers have an obligation to make sure their work environment is safe for all employees and helps prevent other employment problems in the workplace.

In the United States, the Brady Bill requires criminal checks for those wishing to purchase handguns from licensed firearms dealers. Restricted firearms (like machine guns), suppressors, explosives or large quantities of precursor chemicals, and concealed weapons permits also require criminal checks.

Checks are also required for those working in positions with special security concerns, such as

• trucking,
• ports of entry
• airports (including airline transportation).

Other laws exist to prevent those who do not pass a criminal check from working in careers involving the elderly, disabled, or children.

Recently, many jobs are using pre-employment credit checks and the trend has appear to have grown since 2000 within the United States (Bird, M., 2010).

According to a survey in 2010, many individuals felt that employers should have the right and duty to check credit reports for all jobs, while another 28 percent felt that it depended on the potential employee's job responsibilities such as banking or accounting jobs.

Possible information included

The amount of information included on a background check depends to a large degree on the sensitivity of the reason for which it is conducted—e.g., somebody seeking employment at a minimum wage job would be subject to far fewer requirements than somebody applying to work for a law enforcement agency such as the FBI or jobs related to national security.

Criminal, arrest, incarceration, and sex offender records

There are several types of criminal record searches available to employers, some more accurate and up to date than others.

• These "third party" background checking agencies cannot guarantee the accuracy of their information, thus many of them have incomplete records or inaccurate records. The only way to conduct an accurate background check is to go directly through the state.
• Most times using the state of choice is much cheaper than using a "third party" agency.
• Many websites offer the "instant" background check, which will search a compilation of databases containing public information for a fee. These “instant” searches originate from a variety of sources, from statewide court and corrections records to law enforcement records which usually stem from county or metro law enforcement offices.
• There are also other database-type criminal searches, such as statewide repositories and the national crime file.
• A commonly used criminal search by employers who outsource is the county criminal search.

Citizenship, immigration, or legal working status

The hiring of illegal workers has become an issue for American businesses since the forming of the Department of Homeland Security and its Immigrations and Customs Enforcement(ICE) division. Many history making immigration raids over the past two years have forced employers to consider including legal working status as part of their background screening process.

All employers are required to keep government Form I-9 documents on all employees and some states mandate the use of the federal E-verify program to research the working status of Social Security numbers. With increased concern for right-to-work issues, many outsourcing companies are sprouting in the marketplace to help automate and store Form I-9 documentation. Some jobs are only available to citizens who are residents of that country due to security concerns.

Litigation records

Employers may want to identify potential employees who routinely file discrimination lawsuits. It has also been alleged that in the U.S., employers that do work for the government do not like to hire whistleblowers who have a history of filing qui tam suits.

Driving and vehicle records

Employers that routinely hire drivers or are in the transportation sector seek drivers with clean driving records—i.e., those without a history of accidents or traffic tickets. Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Transportation records are searched to determine a qualified driver.

Drug tests

Drug tests are used for a variety of reasons—corporate ethics, measuring potential employee performance, and keeping workers' compensation premiums down.

Education records

These are used primarily to see if the potential employee had graduated from high school (or a GED) or received a college degree, graduate degree, or some other accredited university degree. There are reports of SAT scores being requested by employers as well.

Employment records

These usually range from simple verbal confirmations of past employment and timeframe to deeper, such as discussions about performance, activities and accomplishments, and relations with others.

Financial information

Credit scores, liens, civil judgments, bankruptcy, and tax information may be included in the report.

Licensing records

A government authority that has some oversight over professional conduct of its licensees will also maintain records regarding the licensee, such as personal information, education, complaints, investigations, and disciplinary actions.

Medical, Mental, and Physiological evaluation and records

These records are generally not available to consumer reporting agencies, background screening firms, or any other investigators without documented, written consent of the applicant, consumer or employee.

Military records

Although not as common today as it was in the past fifty years, employers frequently requested the specifics of one's military discharge.

Social Security Number

(or equivalent outside the US). A fraudulent SSN may be indicative of identity theft, insufficient citizenship, or concealment of a "past life". Background screening firms usually perform a Social Security trace to determine where the applicant or employee has lived.

Other interpersonal interviews

Employers may investigate past employment to verify position and salary information. More intensive checks can involve interviews with anybody that knew or previously knew the applicant—such as teachers, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and family members; however, extensive hearsay investigations in background checks can expose companies to lawsuits. Past employment and personal reference verifications are moving toward standardization with most companies in order to avoid expensive litigation.

Controversies

Drug tests and credit checks for employment are highly controversial practices. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a project of the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN): "While some people are not concerned about background investigations, others are uncomfortable with the idea of investigators poking around in their personal histories. In-depth checks could unearth information that is irrelevant, taken out of context, or just plain wrong. A further concern is that the report might include information that is illegal to use for hiring purposes or which comes from questionable sources."

In May 2002, allegedly improper post-hire checks conducted by Northwest Airlines were the subject of a civil lawsuit between Northwest and 10,000 of their mechanics. In the case of an arrest that did not lead to a conviction, employment checks can continue including the arrest record for up to seven years, per  sec. 605 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

Except as authorized under subsection (b) of this section, no consumer reporting agency may make any consumer report containing . . . Civil suits, civil judgments, and records of arrest that from date of entry, antedate the report by more than seven years or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is the longer period.

Subsection (b) provides for an exception if the report is in connection with "the employment of any individual at an annual salary which equals, or which may reasonably be expected to equal $75,000, or more

Some proposals for decreasing potential harm to innocent applicants include:

• Furnishing the applicant with a copy of the report before it is given to the employer, so that any inaccuracies can be addressed beforehand; and
• Allowing only conviction (not arrest) records to be reported.

In Michigan, the system of criminal checks has been criticized in a recent case where a shooting suspect was able to pass an FBI check to purchase a shotgun although he had failed the check for a state handgun permit. According to the spokesman of the local police department,

... you could have a clear criminal history but still have contacts with law enforcement that would not rise to the level of an arrest or conviction [that can be used] to deny a permit whether or not those involved arrests that might show up on a criminal history.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has criticized the federal policy, which denies constitutional rights based on a criminal check only if the subject has been accused of a crime.

Public records pay sites

Taking advantage of public records availability in the United States, a number of Web based companies began purchasing U.S. public records data and selling it online, primarily to assist the general public in locating people. Many of these sites advertise background research and provide employers and/or landlords with fee-based checks.

There has been a growing movement on the web to use advertising-based models to subsidize these checks. These companies display targeted ads next to the reports delivered to landlords or employers. Some of the reports provided by these pay sites are only expanded versions of a basic people search providing a 20 year history of addresses, phone numbers, marriages and divorces, businesses owned and property ownership. Usually, these sites will also provide a nationwide criminal report for an added charge.

The Rest @ Wikipedia



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