| How I-9 Verifications Can Protect Your Business |
September 2007
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) absorbed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 2003 and began investigating all government employees and others who have access to potentially dangerous sites (i.e., airports, nuclear plants, defense facilities, etc.). But as immigration reform progresses, the requirement for work authorization for every employee becomes a greater reality.
Once prospective hires are offered a position, many companies ensure that their employees are authorized to work in the United States by verifying the applicant's Social Security Number (SSN) with the Social Security Administration or by submitting a completed I-9 form to the DHS through an internet-based system called E-Verify. While this is a voluntary verification in most states, many individual states are pre-empting the federal government and passing their own suite of new immigration and workforce eligibility laws that require employment eligibility verification. Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma already require several–and in some cases all–employers to use the DHS E-Verify system to ensure employment eligibility of new hires.
Benefits to Conducting Employment Eligibility Verification
Included among the benefits of properly conducting I-9 verifications, is ensuring compliance with new and pending immigration reform legislation, decreased risk of exposure to government audits, and improved accuracy in tax and wage reporting. In light of both the pending and existing legislation, many organizations are working with their legal teams to develop and implement employment eligibility verification programs in hopes of avoiding the risks of hiring unauthorized workers.
Consequences of Non-Compliance
If a company is subject to a DHS audit and inconsistencies are discovered, illegal employees can be subject to anything from termination to deportation. The companies and their executives can be prosecuted on both the civil and criminal levels and can be penalized by substantial fines and/or jail time. The DHS made 3,776 administrative arrests in 2006 and has seized $29 million from corrupt employers already this year. Fines for failing to comply with I-9 requirements range from $100 to $1000 per employee, and are on the rise. Recent DHS actions against unlawful employers include:
 The arrest of several officials of a staffing agency in Oregon for hiring and providing illegal aliens to customers
The indictment of the managers of a cleaning and sanitation service for harboring illegal aliens
A 10-month jail sentence and $1 million judgment against the owner of a string of 10 donut shops for employing illegal aliens under sub-par conditions
Mitigating Risk
These recent legal actions bring to the foreground some of the serious ramifications of hiring individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States. Employers can mitigate the risk of unknowingly hiring unauthorized workers by conducting I-9 employment verifications through the federal government's E-Verify system. It has become crucial that companies ensure their employees' authorization documents are in order, being stored properly, and are readily available in the event of a government audit.
To find out how Unisource Screening can help you comply with new employment eligibility requirements, contact us at: info@unisourcescreening.com , or 800-400-2761.
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