By: Andrew Scott, Esquire
According to data recently released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency initiated 6,848 worksite investigations and 5,981 I-9 audits in fiscal year 2018—both substantial increases from 2017. As a result of ICE enforcement actions over the course of the year, businesses were ordered to pay more than $10.2 million in judicial fines, forfeitures, and restitutions, and an additional $10.2 million in civil penalties.
Because ICE’s compliance efforts are grounded on an I-9 auditing program, there are a number of simple steps that businesses can take to ensure that they are not contributing to the agency’s statistics next year. Consider developing employee on-boarding checklists, implementing record retention procedures, and, perhaps most importantly, conducting regular self-audits.
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