This is becoming serious business for human resource professionals, particularly if you know that you have paperwork violations buried in your I-9’s…AND….you’ve had turnover with the staff that are charged with handling I-9’s …and lastly, none of your staff has ever received formal I-9 compliance training.

Our compliance team can plan and structure a project to your needs that will ease the uncertainty of going through a partial or full audit of your I-9 employee population.  We ask all our clients and readership to strongly consider consulting with us, if you haven’t already, to discuss the management of your employee verification program, policy and procedures.  Please see today’s announcement from ICE.

In April 2009, Secretary Napolitano announced changes to ICE’s worksite enforcement strategy – which reduced the need for large-scale immigration enforcement actions where employees were arrested and instead focused on finding evidence to criminally charge employers and to increase the use of tools like I-9 audits, fines and debarment.

• This year, ICE criminally charged a record-breaking 180 owners, employers, managers and/or supervisors – up from 135 in FY 2008 and 114 in FY 2009.
• ICE conducted more than 2,200 I-9 audits – up from more than 1,400 in FY 2009.
• Since January 2009, ICE has imposed approximately $50 million in financial sanctions.
• ICE debarred 97 business and 49 individuals in FY 2010, up from 30 and 53, respectively, in FY 2009

Here’s an associated announcement from Secretary Napolitano.

We would urge you to be proactive in this area and put the matter of a “pre-audit”  I-9 audit on your agenda, or request training from us as to how to conduct your own internal audit.