A recent lunch with an immigration attorney lead to an interesting conversation. It appears that ICE, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is making the rounds to businesses to make sure that each employee file contains verification that employees have the right to work in this country legally. Each employee hired needs to have an I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) form filled out along with a copy of the document used to verify eligibility and must be signed by the employer. Recently "Abercrombie and Fitch" received a million dollar fine not because they were not doing this but because of infractions in the process used by the company. In another case a Hialeah, FL. General Contractor, his wife and son are being imprisoned for hiring undocumented workers. None of this is too unusual, except typically these office inspections only come after a tip off, or under reasonable cause. Random inspections are not the norm. Can this be the leading edge of protectionism? Can this be a form of raising revenue? You be the judge. When hiring employees and subcontractors, you need to make sure you follow the rules. Generally, it's the employers responsibility to process the correct paper work "before" that worker begins work. Call our offices if you need help.
No comments:
Post a Comment