Employment Eligibility: More Bosses Arrested for I-9 Compliance Violations

I-9 compliance and employment eligibility is a paramount issue for employers today and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will continue to discipline violators who knowingly and unknowingly hire illegal workers and violate employment eligibility laws.

News last week that executives of 11 McDonalds franchises in Nevada (see article here) were arrested and fined for hiring illegal workers makes the point that it's not just hourly employees who are targeted in immigration and employment eligibility workplace sweeps. More and more individuals in the supervisory chain are being arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for I-9 employment eligibility violations.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (http://www.dhs.gov) there have been 937 criminal arrests in worksite cases of I-9 compliance violations this year, and 99 were in the company’s supervisory chain. Employment eligibility should be every employer's primary concern this year.

"It often takes time to build a criminal case against an employer, but the charges and penalties will likely be more serious as a result,” writes DHS Director Michael Chertoff in the online Leadership Journal.

Executives take note on Form I-9 compliance and employment eligibility:

If your company has a large chain of command from top to bottom and you are unaware of who you are hiring, you must take a new approach to monitoring employment eligibility. Don't leave all the decision making up to your HR personnel and ensure there are administrative procedures in place to verify employment eligibility documentation (Form I-9) collaboratively with the government's E-Verify program. Automating this task will help reduce risk and take the employment eligibility administrative nightmare away from your HR staff.

Visit http://www.i-9compliance.com/ to fill out a request for information and download the free white paper: 15 Facts Everyone Should Know About I-9 Compliance.

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