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.
Tags: E-Verify, employment eligibility verification, Employment Verification, Form I-9, I-9 Compliance, ICE Inspections
Form I-9, I-9 Compliance | admin | 
January 26, 2010 10:30 am
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