Employers hiring screening firms to avoid migrant-hiring sanctions

Yvette Armendariz
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 24, 2006 12:00 AM

The growing spotlight on the role of employers in illegal immigration has
some businesses, from restaurants to construction companies and others,
scrambling to protect themselves from federal penalties.

They are hiring employment-screening companies to audit employees' Social
Security numbers and doing background checks on new hires. In some cases,
employers are turning over all hiring functions to outside firms and seeking
help in complying with legal paperwork in hopes that they don't find
themselves at risk of fines or prosecution.

"We've found the focus is shifting from wage-and-hour compliance to
immigration compliance," said John Rico, director of human resources for
Scottsdale-based National PEO, which provides services including employment
screening, payroll and human-resource consulting.
advertisement <http://www.azcentral.com/imgs/clear.gif>

<http://q.azcentral.com/RealMedia/ads...ntral.com/busi
ness/articles/0424biz-immigration0424.html/1468362842/ArticleFlex_1/OasDefau
lt/amex_biz_300/amex-300x250.txt/63666338373463373434346630313730?_RM_EMPTY_
>
<http://www.azcentral.com/imgs/clear.gif>


Some background screeners and human-resource consultants report that
business has jumped as much as 60 percent in the past three months. They
don't expect a slowdown anytime soon, given U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement's recent announcement to crack down on employers who knowingly
hire illegal immigrants. The agency seeks to fine and prosecute businesses
that blatantly ignore hiring laws.

In Arizona, as many as 40 agents may be added to help with work-site
enforcement, which has been scant in recent years. Just 30 employers
statewide have been fined for hiring undocumented workers over the past 12
years.

Nationally, work-site-enforcement arrests declined from 2,849 in 1999 to 445
in 2003, according to an August report by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office. Notices of intent to fine employers declined from 417 in 1999 to
just three in 2004.

Several employment screeners said they expect to step up marketing of their
services or add services to help business make a good-faith effort to avoid
hiring undocumented workers.

"What is a good-faith effort is becoming more stringent and time-consuming
for employers," said Anne Caldwell, president of Phoenix-based Outsourcing
Solutions, a human-resource strategy firm.

The general attitude had been that if an employer looked at a document and
felt that it was legitimate, then that was good enough. But today,
human-resource specialists are cautioning that more documentation will be
required to show a good-faith effort.

Kevin Klimas, president of Clarifacts Inc., an employment-screening company
in Phoenix, is closely watching the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and
the Social Security Administration in anticipation of new guidelines for
employment verification.

"Employers are starting to prepare for a change," he said.

Just what that will entail is difficult to say, but he does note that he's
getting more questions about I-9 forms used to determine employment
eligibility.

Business groups say most employers make a good-faith effort to comply. The
problem is that few have the document experts and systems to check the
validity of Social Security numbers.

"You can legally hire an illegal alien because you've done everything you
are legally required to do because if you take it a step farther, then it's
racial" discrimination, said Mark Minter, executive director of the Arizona
Builders' Alliance, which represents contractors.

"Technology makes it easy to fool even law enforcement agents on what is a
real document and a fake one," he said.

Human-resource experts hope to help improve employers' good-faith efforts.
In many cases, employers simply don't know or understand their legal
obligations for verification and they are often sloppy about record keeping.

Reverse-osmosis company Aqua Chill hired National PEO a few years ago to
oversee payroll and keep an eye on employment verification. It's a good
thing, said office manager Crystal Goodwin, because the company's expertise
isn't in employment documentation. National PEO regularly audits the I-9
forms, which gives Goodwin confidence that the company's
employment-screening efforts would pass muster if they were to face a
federal or state check.

State legislators are pushing for increased checks, too. They are working on
legislation to penalize employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

The increased federal enforcement is unlikely to scare non-compliant
companies, said Tom Fraker, executive director of the Arizona Small Business
Association.

"The odds of getting caught are (still) remote," he said. Many employers are
desperate to fill labor-intensive jobs paying between $8 and $12 an hour, he
said, and they won't hesitate to hire with minimal checks so that work isn't
interrupted.

But he thinks that last week's announcement may marginally help improve
compliance.

"Even though the number of enforcers are few and far between, they'll scare
enough people to do what's right," he said.