Form I-9 and Penalties on Employers

Employees must complete ICE Form I-9 to verify their eligibility to work in the U.S. A Notice of Inspection (NOI) to the employer can request various supporting documentation (e.g., a copy of the employer’s payroll list), which can be followed by an inspection of the I-9s. Substantive violations (e.g., failing to verify documents) are immediately fined. When there’s a technical or procedural failure, the employer has 10 business days to make corrections, with no immediate fines. A new Fact Sheet posted last month recharacterizes some formerly technical/procedural errors as now being substantive errors (e.g., missing an employee’s date of birth), which is immediately fined. The Fact Sheet says: “If an employer has not recently conducted an internal audit of their IRS Form I-9s, consider doing so in order to self-correct outside of an ICE I-9 audit.” #IdeaoftheDay