Form I 9 Compliance – The Risk and The Requirements

What will you do when government agents demand to see your company’s I-9 records?  Will you be able to produce everything that is requested within 3 days time?  What happens if your company is found to be out of compliance with the requirements of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification?

These are questions HR managers, business owners, and legal counsel must take seriously in this new era of Form I-9 enforcement.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is auditing employers in record numbers in a never before seen effort to enforce the law that requires every employer to verify the identity and work eligibility of every person they hire.  Failing to comply with the requirements of the Form I-9 will cost an employer thousands of dollars and may even lead to criminal allegations.

Form I 9 Compliance – What Can You Do to Protect Your Company?

The first step is to evaluate your current employment eligibility verification process and develop a plan to correct short falls in the Form I-9 policy of your company.  Policy you say?  We should have a policy?  Well, the simple answer is “of course you should have an I 9 Compliance Policy”.

A Form I-9 policy should include the process by which the I-9 is correctly completed and answers the following questions:

• Who is in charge of insuring the Form I-9 is completed for every person hired?
• When is the I-9 completed – at the time of hire, on the first day of work, during orientation, etc?
• How is the Form I-9 form stored?
• Who has access to the files?
• What process is in place to insure the I-9 is updated when necessary?
• Will we use E-Verify or Social Security Number Verification?

These are just a few of the questions a proactive employer should be asking about their I-9 processes.

Don’t Wait to Institute a Form I 9 Compliance Plan

In the New Year, make the commitment to protect your company from unnecessary risk related to Form I 9 compliance.  Invest in a plan, seek out the advice of an expert, and be confident you are fulfilling your responsibility to comply with the requirements of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.

The Form I-9 – How Can It Be This Hard?

I’ve been very busy this quarter doing an independent 3rd party I 9 audit for several companies. Almost without fail, every company I go to is confident they are complying with the requirements of the Form I-9 and almost without fail, are not. In speaking with dedicated HR professionals who are in charge of I 9 compliance they ask “How can it be this hard?”

Well for starters, the Form I-9 was introduced in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, and it has been revised several times over its 24 year history. Sometimes the changes have been minor and other times quite significant. The latest version of the Form I-9 was revised in February of 2009 and reflects changes to the Lists of Acceptable Documents and the Attestation in Section 1 of the form. Perhaps the most significant change is that employers may no longer accept expired documents. All documents must be unexpired at the time the Form I-9 is completed.

In our experience as expert auditors, time and time again we find simple clerical errors, missing information, and lack of attention to detail to be the HR manager’s biggest challenge. For many, they don’t truly understand the significance of the I-9. When I ask an HR manager if they have actually read the instructions for completing the I-9, they sheepishly answer “Well, no… it’s a one page form. Why would I need instructions?”

Lack of Training for I 9 Compliance

Many employees whose job description includes I 9 compliance have never received any formal training in the proper completion of the form. Many are taught by someone else who also has never received any training and so the same mistakes are passed down from generation to generation.

We often run into problems because an employer was given bad advice from a CPA or business attorney who did not fully understand the requirements of I 9 employment eligibility verification. The amount of misinformation concerning proper procedures relating to the employment eligibility verification process is astounding. The message here is to get your advice from an expert in I 9 compliance. Most business attorneys and CPA’s are not Form I-9 experts.

To the HR directors and managers who ask “how can it be this hard” – the answer is it doesn’t have to be. Seek the advice of an expert, conduct a comprehensive I 9 audit, and get the proper training and it is possible to achieve compliance with the requirements of the Form I-9. Download our free Employment Eligibility Verification Report today for more information concerning the Form I-9 and E-Verify.