ICE steps up enforcement, Form I-9 recordkeeping under fire

On July 1, 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that the agency had issued 652 Notices of Inspection (NOIs) to look into suspected negligent hiring.

The new audit initiative illustrates the agency’s stepped-up focus on holding employers directly accountable for their hiring practices and their duty to ensure a legal and documented workforce.

The NOIs serve as an alert to businesses that ICE will conduct investigations to determine whether their hiring records, including employment eligibility forms (Form I-9), are in compliance with federal law.

For the countless number of businesses who weren’t served with NOIs, the announcement from ICE may be a jarring wake-up call to ensure that they’re in full compliance with the employment eligibility verification process.

Businesses should make certain that all employees involved in the hiring process are fully trained on the work eligibility process and Form I-9 best practices.

Employers are legally required to fill out a Form I-9 to verify the work eligibility of new employees and re-verify the eligibility of existing employees. Employers who fail to fill out I-9 forms for every employee may be subject to violation fines.

Learn more about Form I-9 documentation and recordkeeping compliance:

ICE announces audits, review Form I-9 best practices

Form I-9 expiration date extended past 6/30/09

Are your employees trained on the new Form I-9?

Illegal immigration enforcement shifts toward employers

Today is the old new Form I-9 deadline

Remember the Form I-9 “Hokey Pokey” we played last summer? Are you ready for round two?

A new I-9 form was scheduled to take effect today, but in a surprise move, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) retracted the mandatory changes late on Friday, January 30, pending further comment and review.

I hope you remember where you put your old I-9s, because DHS says we must continue using them until April 3, 2009. The good version of the Form I-9 should have the “(Rev. 06/05/07) N” date on the bottom right-hand corner of the form.

Last Friday, DHS extended another 30-day comment period for the new Employment Verification rules and pushed back the scheduled update by two months, instructing businesses to go back to using the previous guidelines and I-9 forms.

In preparation for the new I-9 forms, many hiring managers and HR departments across the country discarded the previous forms, believing them to be outdated. The retraction and re-instatement of the old forms has some employers scrambling to respond and replace the forms they threw out last week.

Ashley Kaplan, Labor Law Compliance Attorney for G.Neil, received the DHS announcement Friday evening and immediately recognized the potential challenges.

“We worked overtime last week to ship out the updated forms to our customers to begin using on February 2, and now need to get back to them with new instructions,” Kaplan explains. “We’re providing a free pdf of the previous I-9 Form and instructions to our customers who purchased the updated forms. We’ll also closely monitor the extended review period in case further changes occur before the April 3rd deadline.”

If there was ever a time when procrastinating on compliance deadlines could work in your favor - this was it. You now have more time to get the right forms in order and finish up that Form I-9 training.

Still confused and need more information? Read G.Neil's new Form I-9 Q & A.

Are your employees trained on the new Form I-9?

U.S. employers have less than a month to ensure their organizations are in compliance with the new changes to the Employment Eligibility Verification process (Form I-9).

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published the new I-9 changes to streamline the work eligibility process on December 17, 2008. The new I-9 form reflects several changes including new employment verification guidelines and a redefined list of acceptable proof of identification documents.

Beginning February 2, 2009, all employers are required to use the revised Form I-9 for verification of new employees and re-verification of existing employees. It is each employer’s responsibility to ensure all employees involved in the hiring process are trained on the latest changes to the new document.

The new Form I-9 includes several modifications that you should cover in your Form I-9 compliance training, including:

• Using expired documents as proof of identification or work authorization is no longer acceptable.
• Three documents were eliminated from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents: Temporary Resident Card, and older versions of the Employment Authorization Card/Document.
• Foreign passports with machine-readable visas for certain citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) were added to List A.
• The new U.S. Passport card was added to the list of acceptable employment eligibility verification documents.
• Revisions to the employee attestation section of the Form I-9.

Employers who fail to use the revised I-9 form by February 2, 2009 may be subject to violation fines. Keep your company in compliance by ordering the updated Form I-9 today.

The Form I-9 Hokey Pokey

Yesterday we reported on an urgent change with I-9 forms issued by the DHS. Today the same government website has withdrawn the statement that the existing form is no longer acceptable. In neither case was any information given beyond those single lines. No press release, no instructions, no details.

You put your right form in, you take your right form out....

So today we wait. Will it be the new form? Will it be the old form? Companies like GNeil who are scrambling to keep their clients in compliance are searching the Federal wires for a definitive answer. Should they keep their old inventory or scrap it? Should they tell clients to throw away the old forms, or encourage them to hold on to them, just in case the new detail (when and if it's finally released) includes a grace period.

You throw your old forms out, you keep you old forms in...

And companies like ours who act as a channel for training materials and information wait to see where the chips fall. Will this micro-announcement be followed by some major changes? Are there going to be training needs in here somewhere? I mean, getting in wrong when it comes to mindless forms can cost an employer thousands of very minded dollars.

You put your whole self in, you pull your whole self out,
You do the hokey pokey while the government turns us round
That's what it's all about.

Watch here or at the GNeil blog for more information as soon as DHS makes up its collective mind.