ICE Renews Commitment to Punish Employers

Most employers are not aware that several days ago Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, sent a copy of its Strategic Priorities for Fiscal Years 2010-2014 to its employees.  The memo has not been made public, but you can read it here - ICE Strategic Plan.

The ICE Strategic Plan outlines the priorities on 3 very important efforts:

1)      Preventing terrorism and enhancing security

2)      Securing and managing our borders

3)      Enforcing and administering our immigration laws.

As part of the goal of enforcing our current immigration laws, ICE promises to enforce immigration related employment laws in order to create a culture of compliance among employers.

The strategy is a 2-pronged approach.  It includes aggressive criminal and civil penalties against employers who knowingly violate immigration laws, and continues to implement programs such as E-Verify (verifies employment eligibility to work in the United States) and IMAGE.

ICE is also promising to hire additional auditors to focus on employer’s Form I-9 compliance.  Based on government audits, ICE has collected over $15,000,000 in fines from employers, many who have never knowingly hired an illegal worker and made only clerical mistakes while completing the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.

It is important for every employer to understand that government enforcement of Form I-9 regulations is not going away anytime soon.  Developing best practices, learning about 3^rd party Form I-9 audits and seeking qualified advice concerning I-9 compliance is imperative in this new era of enforcement.

Don’t let your company be the next to suffer large fines resulting from an ICE inspection.  It could bankrupt your business!