Are Your I-9's in Order?
If your company hires employees (which, I’m pretty sure it does), it can be susceptible to a Notice of Inspection (NOI) from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On November 6, 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act was enacted. This Act requires employers to verify the identity and employment eligibility of their employees. With this Act, the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (or better know as an I-9) was born. Employers are required to keep I-9 forms for all current employees on hand in case of inspection. For former employees the time requirement to hold I-9's is at least three years from the date of hire or for one year after the employee is no longer employed, whichever is longer.
The fines, as reported on the ICE website, can range from $110 to $1,100 per violation. These violations include the inability to produce an I-9 for an employee. In their determination of the penalty amounts, ICE considers five factors, which include:
The size of your company
Good faith effort to comply
Seriousness of the violation
Whether the violation involved unauthorized workers
History of previous violations
It may be a good idea to check your records to ensure all employees do have an I-9 on hand. Also, you may want to head over to the ICE website to review how the I-9 inspection process works, so you can be better prepared if ICE ever decided to make a visit.
And the companions, known as the 401k.9s