Look Out, The I-9 Audits Are Here

In June 2010, ICE issued a strategic plan for worksite enforcement to be implemented
through fiscal year 2014.. The plan is well underway, and 1000 audit notices were send out earlier this year. professional conulstats at the tip of the spear of his plan tell us that employers who completely ignored them earlier in the year are calling back asking for help.

This the ICE plan:

• A key feature of this plan was to be enforcement of immi‐gration‐related employment laws, including enforcement against employers who knowingly violate the law. 
• In the intervening months, ICE has conducted education,Form I‐9 investigations and audits, and has  imposed criminal and civil sanctions.
• In its strategic plan, ICE indicated its belief that its actions would create a ʺculture of compliance.ʺ  Certain industries, including agriculture, construction, hospitality, and food processing, have been the main targets of these actions.

So how do these I‐9 audits usually go?

• An NOI (Notice of Inspection) gives a targeted employer three days to prepare for a meeting with ICE officials. 
• At that meeting, the employer’s Form I‐9 records are reviewed.
• In addition to properly completed Forms I‐9 for all current and recent ex‐employees, the employer is told to turn over payroll and other employee‐related documentation, and any documentation (such as  ʺno‐matchʺ  letters) received from the Social Security Administration, and information about the business owners.
• ICE investigators audit this information. At the audit’s conclusion, ICE notifies the employer of the results.
• If no violations are found, ICE issues a letter advising that there is no basis for further investigation.
• If violations are found, ICE may issue a  ʺNotice of Technical or Procedural Failuresʺ and give the employer 10 days to make corrections on Forms I‐9. 
• If corrections are not done or not done on time, ICE may issue a  ʺNotice of Intent to Fineʺ  (NIF) and assess fines of from $110 to $1,100 per form.

For Each Incorrect form:

• If ICE determines that information on a Form I‐9 for a certain employee is incorrect or invalid, it will issue a  ʺNotice of Suspect Documentsʺ  and require the employer to obtain new documentation from those identified employees to prove their identity and employment eligibility. 
• The employer must discharge an employee who cannot produce the required documentation. Continuing to employ identified employees without valid documentation could result in fines ranging from $375 to $3,200 per unauthorized employee for the first violation.  

If fines are assessed, ICE will issue a Notice of Intent to Fine (NIF.) The NIF lists the violations, includes details about how the fine was calculated, and specifies the total of all fines .

Within 30 days of receipt of the NIF, the employer may contest the fine by requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge.

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How to Document your I-9 form for H1-B Extensions (2011 Update)

I-9 Audits Doubled in 2010, New Federal Employment Compliance Inspection Center Opened

The Obama administration plans to intensify a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants with the establishment of an audit office designed to bolster verification of company hiring records.

In an interview, John Morton, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said the Employment Compliance Inspection Center would "address a need to conduct audits even of the largest employers with a very large number of employees." The office would be announced Thursday, he said.

.Mr. Morton said that the center would be staffed with specialists who will pore over the I-9 employee files collected from companies targeted for audits.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010, ICE conducted audits of more than 2,740 companies, nearly twice as many as the previous year. The agency levied a record $7 million in civil fines on businesses that employed illegal workers.

Enforcement activity during the Bush administration focused on high-profile raids in which thousands of illegal immigrants were arrested and placed in deportation proceedings. Relatively few companies and their executives were prosecuted.

In contrast, the Obama administration has made employers the center of its immigration policy with "silent raids." Critics say the policy has penalized small employers while failing to target larger employers.

Mr. Morton said the new center would have the "express purpose" of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. "We wouldn't be limited by the size of a company," he said.

The audits, which have affected garment makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of every illegal immigrant on a company's payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can't attract American workers even during an economic downturn.

Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees' hiring documents were suspect. The company declined to comment for this article.

Tom Roach, an immigration attorney in Pasco, Wash., said a client lost more than half of his workforce last year owing to an audit. "He had paid every nickel of taxes on them," he said. But the employees had presented social-security cards that the landscape company couldn't discern were fake, said Mr. Roach.

Small business owners, in particular, say they don't have the ability to police their workers. They also fear discrimination suits, as some companies have experienced, for demanding additional documents from workers whom they suspect are in the country illegally.

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Associated Press

A U.S. immigration agent, second from left, led away three men during a search at a Poplar Bluff, Mo., restaurant last August.
.Angelo Paparelli, an immigration attorney in New York and southern California, said: "We need to take employers out of the business of performing government functions, like playing immigration police."

"Ultimately, it is in a company's best financial interest to proactively comply with the law now rather than to face potential fines or criminal prosecution for noncompliance in the future," an ICE spokeswoman said.

Mr. Morton said ICE was also seeking to expand a program enabling businesses to work with the federal government to ensure they are employing people authorized to work in the U.S. Called IMAGE, or ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers, the voluntary program includes training and assessments to help a company guard against hiring illegal employees.

Mr. Morton will also announce Thursday that Tyson Foods, Inc., which employs 100,000 people and has fought immigration troubles in the past, has joined the program, agreeing to an audit of "a certain portion of existing records." The poultry processor, which says it has already taken steps to maintain a legal workforce, also agreed to establish an internal auditing process, Mr. Morton said.

Mr. Morton suggested Tyson could pave the way for other big companies to join the program. Tyson faced federal human-smuggling charges in a high-profile trial that resulted in acquittal in 2003.

"We...believe this partnership will enhance our ability to collaborate with government officials on immigration-related matters," said Tyson Chief Human Resources Officer Ken Kimbro.

"Tyson realized that employment of unauthorized workers posed a risk to their operations and stepped forward to manage that risk," says Mark Reed, a former immigration agent who runs Border Management Strategies, a consulting firm which has advised Tyson.

Since ICE initiated the IMAGE program in 2006, only 115 companies have signed on, with many reluctant to open their books to government scrutiny and to invest in training and new systems to bolster their employer-verification process, experts say.

About 11 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., according to government estimates. Without them, experts say, such industries as construction, lodging and agriculture would be forced to radically change how they operate—sharply boosting costs for consumers or curtailing the services they provide.

Originally published 1/20/2011 By MIRIAM JORDAN

The Rest @ The Wall Street Journal

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