The Department emphasizes its commitment to reducing the demand for illegal immigration by eliminating conditions that encourage unauthorized

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1 1 The Department emphasizes its commitment to reducing the demand for illegal immigration by eliminating conditions that encourage unauthorized employment. In order to meet that objective, the Department will initiate nearly double the number of criminal prosecutions of employers - from 296 this past fiscal year to 478 employers in the current fiscal year. 2 1

2 Properly completed Form I-9s are required to comply with the Immigration Reform and Control Act. The purpose of the form is to evidence an employer s inspection of an employee s genuine identification and work authorization documents. A Form I-9 must be completed within three business days of the employees first day of employment. Failure to comply is a violation of federal law. Errors or missing documentation could result in administrative & criminal fines, and debarment. 3 Currently, it s a one-page form with a 64 page manual There are approximately 54 different ways for an employer to mess-up the Form I-9 Generally, I-9 compliance is not considered a priority because management assumes training is routinely provided to HR professionals within the organization AND that the provided training will alleviate the potential for violation Criminal jeopardy attaches when an I-9 violation results in the employment of an unauthorized foreign national 4 2

3 Increased I-9 audits Criminal indictments and grand jury subpoenas Significant administrative civil fines Publicizing enforcement actions, raids, and indictments Criminal search warrants Asset forfeiture Federal contract debarment 5...success of ICE s approach is evident in the statistics: HSI made 713 criminal arrests tied to worksite investigations Of the individuals criminally arrested, 221 were owners, managers, supervisors or human resources employees HSI served 2,496 Notices of Inspection, which resulted in 385 Final Orders, totaling $10.463M in administrative fines ICE debarred 212 businesses and individuals for administrative and criminal violations 6 3

4 Paper or electronic I-9s If electronic, stand-alone or unified process Mergers and acquisitions Privately held versus publically traded Federal contractor Independent contracting and subcontracting Employee leasing and employee lending 7 Employers who have acquired or merged with another company have two options for dealing with Forms I-9 for the acquired employees: Option A: Treat all acquired individuals as new hires and complete a new Form I-9 for each and every individual within 3 days of the closing regardless of the employee s original hire date Option B: Treat acquired individuals an employees who are continuing uninterrupted in their employment status and retain the previous owner s Forms I-9 for each employee 8 4

5 The best supplemental tool currently offered by the Government to assist employers The data is mined for compliance violations AND statistics still show substantial non-confirm rate for initial review The defect inherent in the machine: the Government data bases are not updated quickly Federal Contractors have been mandated to use E-Verify as the government claims it will lead by example and contracts awarded on or after September 8, 2009 are mandated to use the system and flow down the requirement State Legislatures are mandating the use of E-Verify; as a result, multi-state employers must maintain local vigilance to ensure compliance with state law 9 A company that is already using E-Verify as required by the FAR E-Verify clause which then merges with or acquires another company must comply with the timelines listed below for verifying employees gained through merger or acquisition: Option A if the company has chosen to verify its entire workforce, the company will have 180 days from the effective date of the merger or acquisition to create an E- Verify case for each of the non-exempt employees that join the company do to merger with or acquisition of the other company. 10 5

6 A company that is already using E-Verify as required by the FAR E-Verify clause which then merges with or acquires another company must comply with the timelines listed below for verifying employees gained through merger or acquisition: Option B if the company is not verifying its entire workforce, the company will have 90 days from the effective date of the merger or acquisition to create an E- Verify case for each of the non-exempt employees assigned to the contract that join the company due to merger with or acquisition of the other company. 11 Unless you are a Federal Contractor, E-Verify must ONLY be used to verify NEW hires, and must be initiated after the employee accepts the position (hire date) and within 3 days of the employee s actual start date E-Verify procedures must be applied to ALL new hires, regardless of nationality or citizenship status Must have a training and audit protocol in place to review E-Verify and the I- 9 process together Must display the E-Verify Poster in an area visible to prospective and existing employees to show that it is an E-Verify Participant (English and Spanish Versions) Must display the Anti-Discrimination Poster issued by the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices, Department of Justice (DOJ) in an area visible to prospective employees (English and Spanish Versions) 12 6

7 Minimizes unauthorized employment Reduces the use of fraudulent identity documents Makes our nation a safer place while reducing the cost of fraud related activities associated with identity theft Simpler than you might think! Builds partnerships between your business and an ICE representative Hands on The goal is to assist employers before there are issues 13 JL specializes in full-scale I-9 remediation and digitization Parallel paper and electronic solutions make no sense Provide piece of mind: escalation to the experts, toll-free call center, uniquely tailored HRSI solutions Institute IMAGE best practices: roll out standardized policies and SOPs, respond to mismatch notifications, provide webinar training and spot audit Present advice in real-time: minimizing the opportunity for compliance failure 14 7

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