It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump intends to carry out what he has called the largest mass deportation in U.S. history shortly after taking office. U.S. employers—particularly those in the manufacturing, food processing, agricultural, construction, and hospitality industries with a relatively unskilled workforce—should immediately prepare for ramped-up government immigration enforcement in the workplace. Employers should get ready to endure a painful process, a sudden loss of workers, and administrative and criminal penalties.

Many employers with a substantial nonprofessional workforce have accumulated workers who may be unauthorized to be in the U.S., whether they entered the country undocumented or overstayed. Employers have been required since 1986 to check the documents of new hires to confirm their identity and work authorization in completing Form I-9, but those documents are easily faked. A rising number of employers have opted or been required to use the government’s electronic E-Verify system, which performs real-time validation against governmental systems. However, readily available counterfeit documents embodying the stolen identities of real citizens or permanent residents will validate in E-Verify.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has the authority to appear at a worksite with a notice of inspection and/or subpoena and demand that the employer produce the following within three days: historical lists of workers with dates of hire and termination, payroll and tax records, company ownership information, staffing vendor information, all I-9 forms required to be on file, and any copies of identity and authorization documents presented by employees. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will have an expanding national team to inspect these documents.

I-9 Audits: The ‘Silent Raid’

ICE sanctions are one problem that may arise from an audit, and these sanctions may be imposed for having incorrectly completed forms, for missing forms, and even for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers. Sanctions can range from $300 to $30,000 per worker, plus debarment from federal contracts, and are often disputed. Employers get 10 days to correct technical errors, but ICE takes an expansive view of what counts as substantive errors that can’t be corrected to avoid penalties. ICE can fine employers for failure to comply with extremely technical requirements for electronic storage of completed forms.

But even perfectly innocent employers face the risk of a sudden loss of workers following a government raid.

• Learn how to Make sure I-9 verification, storage, and destruction are being handled meticulously at all sites.
• Learn the differences between Silent Raids and Forced Raids
• Learn how to Internally audit I-9s to find and fix patterns of errors.
• Learn how enrolling in E-Verify can reduce ICE fines and penalties
• Learn how to Evaluate recruiting patterns to detect systematic improprieties.
• Learn how to conduct an internal audit to avoid ICE audits
• Learn how to prepare an immigration component to the employer’s legal compliance policy.
• Learn how to mitigate raids by ICE to sensitive locations like hospitals, places of worships and schools

• All Employers
• Business Owners
• Company Leadership
• HR Professionals
• Compliance Professionals
• Managers/Supervisors