___________________
USCIS Launches E-Verify Employers Search Tool
__________________
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has introduced a new web-based tool that allows the public to search the list of employers participating in E-Verify by name, location, and/or status as a federal contractor.
This information has been publicly available since spring 2012, but the new tool makes the list more easily searchable. It does not expand the scope of available data on E-Verify employers.
The web tool lists only those E-Verify employers who reported having five or more employees. It does not include a complete list of every E-Verify participant.
Employers are listed by legal name (rather than the trade name), workforce size and location. Not every business location of an employer may appear.
The list is updated quarterly. Employers who have terminated their participation in E-Verify are not listed.
If the employer is a federal contractor, USCIS discloses the scope of the employer's verification practices. In addition to verifying the employment eligibility of all new hires, federal contractors must use the system to verify existing employees who are assigned to a federal contract. They may verify all existing employees, including those who are not assigned to a federal contract.
The web-based search tool is available on the USCIS website.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I-9 Audits Hit Record High
I-9 audits increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000 in 2012. This marks an all-time high for the number of companies that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) audited for hiring and retaining unauthorized workers. The total amount of fines increased from $1 million in fiscal year 2009 to nearly $13 million in 2012. The number of company managers arrested also rose to 238.
In the wake of his re-election for a second term, President Barack Obama is pushing for comprehensive immigration reform that includes holding employers accountable for breaking the law. Under the Obama Administration, I-9 audits, administrative fines, and criminal prosecutions of employers who purposely hire and retain unauthorized workers have been on a steady rise.
The audits are part of a $138 million worksite enforcement effort that involves ICE agents reviewing employers' I-9 forms, payroll records and other accounting information. ICE investigates whether the I-9 records for employees are properly filled out and retained. It also checks to see whether employees' names, identities, Social Security numbers, and work authorization match up with government databases.
ICE determines which employers to audit by leads and tips from the public, other employers, and employees within the company. It also conducts random audits. No company, regardless of size, industry or location, is immune from an audit. Employers that tend to rely on immigrant workers, such as ethnic stores, restaurants, bakeries, manufacturing companies, construction, food packaging, janitorial and catering services, dairies and farms, however, are the most commonly targeted.
In fiscal year 2011, the most recent year reviewed by the Associated Press (AP), the median fine was $11,000. The lowest fine was $90 to a Massachusetts fishing company and the highest fine was $394,944 to an employment agency in Minneapolis.
The state with the highest number of workplaces fined was Texas at 63, followed by New Jersey at 37.
__________________________________________________ |
|
DOJ Settles Immigration-Related Discrimination Claim Against North Carolina Company
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently reached an agreement with Gamewell Mechanical Inc. (Gamewell), a mechanical contractor based in Salisbury, North Carolina, resolving claims that the company violated the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA), when it wrongfully terminated three employees. The company incorrectly assumed that the employees were undocumented foreign nationals when they were in fact U.S. citizens.
The DOJ began its investigation after one of the three U.S.-citizen employees filed a discrimination claim against Gamewell. The DOJ found that Gamewell had terminated the three when it received information that six of their coworkers were undocumented foreign nationals and incorrectly assumed that they were also unauthorized to work in the U.S.
Under the terms of the settlement, Gamewell will pay a total of $10,560 in back pay to the three U.S. citizen employees who were terminated and $9,600 in civil penalties to the U.S. government. Gamewell will further train its human resources staff about employers' responsibilities to avoid discrimination in the employment eligibility verification process. Gamewell will also be subject to reporting and compliance monitoring by the DOJ for 18 months.
"The anti-discrimination provision protects work-authorized individuals from being treated differently in employment based on discriminatory assumptions about their status," said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "The Civil Rights Division is fully committed to vigorously enforcing the law."
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA, which protects work authorized individuals from employment discrimination on the basis of citizenship status or national origin discrimination in connection with hiring, firing, and the employment eligibility verification. |
|
|
|
|
