[Courtesy of Tracker Corp]    On November 19, 2009, DHS announced issuance of 1,000 additional I-9 Audit notices to employers across the country, focusing in particular on those providing critical infrastructure and other key resources. This is on top of the 654 I-9 audit notices issued earlier this year. Speaking at a workforce symposium in Washington, DC, Assistant Secretary John Morton (of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE]) reiterated the agency’s commitment to creating a culture of voluntary compliance through aggressive investigations and outreach programs. Assistant Secretary Morton also provided recent statistics, showing the increased level of investigations and fines:

DHS also released statistics from the 654 notices sent in July 2009. The ICE agents identified roughly 14,000 suspect documents, assessed over $2 million in fines, and issued warnings to 326 employers.

We link to the press release announcing these findings.  We link to more details on the locations of the 1,000 companies in the latest round of audits

Reported in Computerworld

USCIS officials are taking H-1B enforcement from the desk to the field with a plan to conduct 25,000 on-site inspections of companies hiring foreign workers over this fiscal year.

The move marks a nearly five-fold increase in inspections over last fiscal year, when the agency conducted 5,191 site visits under a new site inspection program. The new federal fiscal year began Oct. 1.

Tougher enforcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services comes in response to a study conducted by the agency last year that found fraud and other violations in one-in-five H-1B applications.

In a letter to U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency began a site visit and verification program in July to check on the validity of H-1B applications. Mayorkas’ letter was released on Tuesday by Grassley.

“The inspection program determines] whether the location of employment actually exists and if a beneficiary is employed at the location specified, performing the duties as described, and paid the salary as identified in the petition,” said Mayorkas in his letter to Grassley.

…As part of its enforcement effort, Mayorkas said the Citizenship and Immigration Services has hired Dunn and Bradstreet Inc., which provides credit reports among other services, to act as “an independent information provider” and help verify information submitted by companies hiring H-1B workers.

Links to other related articles:

ICE Asst. Secretary Announces 1,000 New Workplace Audits

Anger up, Visas Down

Tech workers take H-1B case to supreme court

Share your thoughts with us on this.

As reported by the American Immigration Council, Janet Napolitano delivered her first detailed speech today on immigration reform.  She indicated that the security and enforcement measures that have been undertaken have revealed that “the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.”

She further commented, “DHS is ready to implement reform”, according to the Secretary who noted,  “We’ve ended a year-long backlog for background checks on applicants for green-cards and naturalization.  We’ve expanded the opportunity for a widow to gain legal status here, despite the untimely death of her US citizen spouse.  We’ve launched a new interactive website that allows people to receive information about the status of their immigration cases by email or text message, and we have reduced the time it takes to process those cases.”

Another positive message she conveyed was: “Businesses must be able to find the workers they need here in America, rather than having to move overseas.  Immigrants need to be able to plan their lives – they need to now that once we reform the laws, we’re going to have a system that works, and that the contours of our immigration laws will last.  And they need to know that they will have as many responsibilities as they do rights…This Administration does not shy away from taking on the big challenges of the 21 Century, challenges that have been ignored too long and hurt our families and businesses.”

An interesting comment by Ben Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council who attended the speech today noted, “Napolitano’s speech today evidenced a real understanding by the Administration of the comprehensive policy prescriptions necessary to reform a broken system…..Her clear statement on the value of immigrants to our society and economy, and the important role that immigration reform can play in building a foundation for growth and prosperity is a welcome response to the angry, misinformed rhetoric that has otherwise clouded the debate on immigration.”

We link to the video of Secretary Napolitano’s speech

Press Release -10/30/2009

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today opened the new National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) — a 24-hour, DHS-led coordinated watch and warning center that will improve national efforts to address threats and incidents affecting the nation’s critical information technology and cyber infrastructure.

“Securing America’s cyber infrastructure requires a coordinated and flexible system to detect threats and communicate protective measures to our federal, state, local, and private sector partners and the public,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Consolidating our cyber and communications operations centers within the NCCIC will enhance our ability to effectively mitigate risks and respond to threats.”

The new, state-of-the-art facility reflects the shared priority of President Obama and Secretary Napolitano to bolster information sharing and incident response in order to protect and secure the nation’s cyber networks and infrastructure.

For more on this story

It has been reported that some 20,000 more unannounced employer site visits will be taking place over the next few months by FDNS, but this time it will be to employers who have filed H-1B extensions to determine if there is ongoing compliance by the employer.

It’s been asked, do they have the legal right to do this – just show up and demand to speak with a company’s representative or executive officer?  Yes, they do, although it hasn’t been acted upon to the extent we are now observing until your $500 Fraud Detection and Prevention government filing fee created the revenue to employ some 6,500 FDNS agents.  Up until now, USCIS or DOL agents have always been in a position to do onsite employer visits when they thought necessary – but it’s been rarely acted upon.  Presently, you can add ICE and FDNS to this group – because we’re in a hunt ‘em down, enforcement climate – and it’s the employers who are being targeted.

So, how does an employer handle this?  We don’t recommend that you wait to ask this question and to get your documentation organized when the agent comes knocking.  This is serious business now, and they are not just targeting the small to medium-size employer or the employer who has financial issues and can’t respond to requests to prove the ability to pay the offered wage to the employee.

Therefore, it is recommended that you discuss this with your immigration counsel now.  If you don’t have a representative, we are available to walk you through a program that will not only assist you in organizing your Public Access information and files, but we will give you the tools to prepare the company representative that will handle the agent site visit and to prepare them for the questions that will be asked, what documentation should be organized now and beeasily accessible to present to the agent when requested – and overall, how to successfully respond to a government site visit at your place of employment.

The complete title of this study is “Breaking the Immigration Stalemate: From Deep Disagreements to Constructive Proposals”.  The study was done by The Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable at Duke University.  They describe themselves as an interdisciplinary “think and do” tank committed to understanding and addressing real-world ethical challenges facing individuals, organizations and societies worldwide.

This is an excellent study that in the end, they feel they were able to agree on a set of recommendations that address the most vexing and controversial issues stymieing immigration reform.

The study proposes 6 policy changes. These changes include emphasizing enforcement at the workplace, setting standards for the legalization of illegal immigrants and establishing an independent Standing Commission on Immigration.

The October 6 event featured the release of the Roundtable’s report and a discussion of the proposals and the potential pitfalls to achieving them. The report is the result of months of deliberation by the Roundtable, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Roundtable members represent a broad spectrum of conflicting views from across the “pro-immigration” and “restrictionist” divide, but have nonetheless come together in support of this single set of recommendations.

We link to the Summary of this report, and for more reading with full audio of the event go here.

DHS has released some modifications to the FAR E-Verify enrollment, introducing 2 options to choose from when enrolling for the first time or when updating your profile on the ‘Maintain Company’ page, as follows:

◦ Federal Contractor with E-Verify Clause

◦ Federal Contractor without E-Verify Clause

If you selected the ‘Federal Contractor’ designation when you enrolled or updated before September 8^th, you will notice that your designation has been changed to either Federal Contractor without (if you signed up before 9/8/09 and did not take the refresher tutorial or the Federal Contractor tutorial) or with E-Verify Clause if you enrolled in either refresher tutorial.

If you selected Federal Contractor after September 8^th, you are now designated as a Federal Contractor with E-Verify Clause.

The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said today he wants to emphasize public engagement, transparency and information technology modernization of the immigration agency during his term.

To meet those goals, Alejandro Mayorkas said he has created a new Office of Public Engagement and is debuting a new, interactive Web site Sept. 22 that will allow for public feedback on agency policy and proposals. The updated Web site also will allow for greater ease of use and more access to information about pending requests and applications.

USCIS’ involvement with community stakeholders “should be more of a collaborative effort, engaged and interactive,” Mayorkas said. “We want to have the community involved at a level where we can understand what we are doing well — and what we are doing wrong.”

Another high priority is moving forward on implementing the next stages of the USCIS’ information technology transformation project, which will digitize the agency’s paper-based records systems, Mayorkas said. The project was started in 2005 and is expected to cost more than $500 million.

Mayorkas, a Cuban immigrant, was sworn in Aug. 24 to head the nation’s immigration and naturalization systems. He previously served as U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and was a partner at the O’Melveny and Myers law firm.

Our firm participated in the webinar (one of many scheduled through the month of September) today, and we were pleasantly surprised — it’s terrific and we highly recommend it.  They walk you through their presentation and also walk you through the actual E-Verify log on and inquiry process.  They answered questions through email and also opened up for a 1/2 hour of live Q&A — very well organized.  For information by telephone, you can call:  888 464.4218.  We will shortly be receiving a transcript of Q&A and links to their presentation and we will share these when received.

If you are interested in setting up a presentation for your organization, or interested in scheduling a live speaker for an event or conference, you can do so by calling the above telephone number or emailing:  E-Verify@dhs.gov

In the meantime, we wanted to share a few resources that we think are worthy, as follows:

1)  Where can you find the law:  Federal Register:  http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-26904.pdf

2)  The link to the DHS webpage for E-Verify

3)  FAQ Link

4)  Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification Information

5)  How do I complete Form I-9?  http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/E3eng.pdf

6)  USCIS Supplemental Guide 9/8/09 for Federal Contractors

Lastly, there is a very interesting article on this topic in today’s Wall Street Journal that we link to.

We will continue to provide any and all information and resources that we feel are informative on this topic.

Immigration Solutions has both the expertise and the legal counsel to walk you through the complex and challenging compliance rules and regulations that are being enforced today.  We link to our Compliance page and to an E-Verify Timeline for Federal Contractors to implement if their organization is awarded a federal contract.

The steps that federal contractors are now required to implement are extremely time-sensitive.  It is recommended that you confer with your immigration provider to make sure that you are properly implementing and adhering to the new E-Verify regulations that go into effect on September 8, 2009.  This does not mean, however, that federal contractors will be required to comply with the E-Verify requirements of the rule as of that date as per our Timeline Chart.

September 8th is the date on which federal government contracting officers will be required to begin including an E-Verify requirement in certain contracts awarded on or after that date.

We will continue to report on this and to provide clear and up-to-date information.  If you’d like to become a client of Immigration Solutions, please contact us.