According to the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have levied one I9 fine of up to $4.9 million. The inspector general’s report said ICE submitted notices totaling fines of more than $52.7 million from 2009 through 2012. The audits and fines will only continue to increase based on the Department of Homeland Security’s own statistics of having more than 20,000 employees at over 400 offices to pursue audits.
The impact to the enterprise is significant and should be strategized for similarly to any other regulatory risk that businesses face today. All businesses are required to store correctly completed I-9 forms submitted by employees that show their legal work status. Analysts say that an I-9 paper-based process is fraught with errors and all sides agree that an electronic system would provide the best completion and tracking process.
The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE division recently commented that they choose certain employers to investigate based on leads received from the public as well as from state and federal agencies. Due to the randomness of this audit process, enterprises need to assure their I-9s are compliant for all future as well as archived I9’s of employees that have worked at their employ from one to up to three years in the past.
The potential liability to your organization of fines and worse yet of public scrutiny can’t be measured in dollars. Government contractors failing an audit may also be debarred from federal or state contract work. According to ICE, Seventy Six percent of paper I-9s have at least one fine-able error. This error rate is the aggregate result of the million plus paper I-9s that have been processed through their I-9 remediation product. The seventy six percent represents a typical paper I-9 error rate for high-volume hiring employers with many locations. If your organization does a high volume of hiring, has multiple locations, and has paper I-9s, your error rate for those I-9s is likely about seventy six percent according to ICE. With penalties of up to $935 per employee per error you can quickly see that fines add up rapidly.
A consistent method to Electronically Audit and Secure the Archival of existing I9 Forms and identifying a certified process for securely and accurately preparing New Employee I-9 Forms is critical for all enterprise businesses considering these regulatory statutes.
Through I9 eVerification Services, the gold standard I9 - E-Verify software providers serve as the “eVerification Agent” for major corporate enterprises. Extensive knowledge of the I9 process and the associated eVerification procedure along with integrating the latest cloud based technology is crucial. Enterprise customers need protection against increasing fines imposed for noncompliance related to employing undocumented workers or making errors on legally documented workers. With a consistent process businesses will realize risk removal, and satisfactory regulatory audit results. Special circumstances encountered while performing each I9 and eVerification do arise and human resource specialists can be useful. Assuring compliance with all Data Privacy and Data Security issues while facilitating the process of this sensitive data is paramount to identifying the correct tool or service.
