A few weeks ago, we alerted our members to the new Form I-9 released by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This new form is the only valid version of Form I-9 accepted by the USCIS as of May 8th, 2013. Federal law dictates that all employers use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment authorization of potential employees, and now there has been a significant increase in I-9 audits over the past decade to ensure compliance.
The Society of Human Resources Professionals recently noted a skyrocketing increase in the number of I-9 audits over the past decade, from just three in 2004 to 3,004 in 2012. Even if your organization has diligently completed and submitted I-9 forms for every employee, completing the form accurately is important as well; fines for paperwork violations range from $110 to $1,100, depending on the percentage of audited forms that contain errors. Fines for knowingly violating the Immigration Reform and Control Act can range from $375 per employee for the first offense up to $16,000 per employee for the third offense.
SHRM notes that while many organizations audited for I-9 compliance appeared to be randomly selected in the past, currently there is a trend towards auditing organizations targeted by disgruntled employees or ex-employees complaining to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There is also a trend towards auditing organizations and companies connected to the nation’s “critical infrastructure” such as airports, power plants, or food-service companies or “anything else that seems like homeland security writ large,” according to an attorney quoted by SHRM.