I-9 Compliance Reminder

     Effective May 16^th, 2011 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a final rule stating that employers may no longer accept expired documents to complete the Form I-9. The final rule also revised the list of acceptable documents by removing those that were outdated. Employers will need to pay close attention to the documents they are accepting to ensure they remain in compliance with the new ruling. A new Form I-9 will not be issued by the USCIS, however, employers may choose to continue to use the current version of Form I-9 (Rev. 08/07/2009) or the previous version (Rev. 02/02/2009).

     Employers use Form I-9 to verify that each new employee is eligible to work in the United States. Employers are required to review the documents the new hire has provided to evidence their employment eligibility and complete the form within three business days after the employee begins work. The list of acceptable documents that employees may present to verify their identity and employment authorization is divided into three sections: List A documents, which shows identity and employment authorization; List B documents, which show identity only; and List C documents, which show employment authorization only.

     Employers may face civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring, referring, recruiting or continuing to employ individuals not authorized to work in the United States. The federal government is issuing I-9 audit notices to as many 1,000 companies nation-wide to be audited by ICE, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Monetary penalties for "knowingly hiring" and "continuing to employ" violations range from $375 to $16,000 per violation, with repeat offenders receiving penalties at the higher end. Penalties for substantive violations, which includes failing to produce a Form I-9, range from $110 to $1,100 per violation. In determining penalty amounts, ICE considers five factors: the size of the business, good faith effort to comply, seriousness of violation, whether the violation involved unauthorized workers, and history of previous violations. 

     Many employers are turning to E-Verify as their source of employment eligibility assurance. E-Verify is a free database administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). E-Verify allows employers to process the information provided on each new hire's I-9 to ensure that they are eligible to work in the U. S. and gives us the necessary paperwork for the employees to complete if and when they are not eligible to work in the U.S.. Employers are not allowed to process the I-9's on their current employees, therefore retaining their existing workforce. Flores Financial's Human Resources department is currently administering E-Verify for over 17 clients and helping them remain in compliance!

For more information about any of the topics discussed above, please feel free to contact Sarina Magallon or Linda Boland in Flores Financial Services' Human Resources Department at (619) 588-2411.

www.flores-financial.com