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  1. #1
    Senior Member FedUpinFarmersBranch's Avatar
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    Immigration Compliance Complexities

    Immigration Compliance Complexities

    The Department of Homeland Security made some moves in July that reflect a continued shift toward investigating employer -- not illegal-immigrant -- violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has announced hundreds of planned company audits and continues to make efforts to enhance the E-Verify system.

    By Anne Freedman



    Never an easy problem to begin with, immigration compliance continues to be ever more complex and difficult.

    Just this month, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would rescind its No-Match rule, which required the Social Security Administration to notify employers when employee Social Security numbers do not match data in the SSA database.

    The rule, which actually never went into effect after the filing of a lawsuit challenging it, required employers to act to correct any discrepancies with the SSA information.

    Within days of that decision, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of DHS, also revealed it planned to audit more than 600 employers to ensure compliance with hiring laws.

    And, about the same time, DHS announced it would require the use of E-Verify screening for all federal contractors and recipients of bailout funds by Sept. 8. That's another initiative that had been long-delayed by a lawsuit.

    The administration, says Bob McGraw, president of Annapolis, Md.-based Omega Secure Solutions, a homeland security services firm, is "not really interested in putting businesses out of business, especially in this economy," but officials want companies to understand that it wants "substantive due diligence and compliance" on immigration issues.

    "This is the dawn of a new day," says McGraw, a former immigrations officer. While most of the enforcement policies and procedures were started under the Bush administration, he says, indications are that such initiatives "will actually be enhanced in this area of employer compliance" by the Obama administration.

    He noted that previous attempts at employer compliance were "a wink and a nod; this sham, if you will, where everybody including the government was in on the con" because of rampant identity theft and document fraud.

    "Egregious" violators -- those often found in the agricultural or service industries -- should be most concerned, McGraw says. In addition to planned audits, however, ICE will also do audits based on complaints or "leads" made to the organization.

    Some of the recent actions by ICE seem contradictory, says Elena Park, who heads the immigration department at Cozen O'Connor, headquartered in Philadelphia -- specifically the withdrawal of the No-Match rule at the same time E-Verify was mandated for use.

    "I just think it's ironic because [the discontinuance of No-Match] makes E-Verify even more susceptible to identity fraud and false positives and it's not going to solve the problem it's supposed to, which is reduce unlawful employment and curb illegal immigration."

    Angelo Amador, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, says he believes ICE's action now and previously to require E-Verify is "unconstitutional and they don't have the legal grounds to do what they want to as of right now."

    Once ICE issues the regulations necessary to put the E-Verify mandate into operation, he says, the requirement will be challenged in the courts -- as the prior E-Verify mandate was, by a 2008 lawsuit filed by business groups such as the Chamber, HR Policy Association and Society for Human Resource Management.

    Park notes that, unlike the Form I-9, the use of E-Verify does not qualify as a "safe harbor" for employers and can not be used "as a good faith defense" should an organization get raided by ICE. The use of E-Verify has no relationship to incidents of identity theft or document fraud.

    "If they make it mandatory," she says, "perhaps they will change that."

    Employers have always been in a bit of a Catch-22 situation in this regard. Organizations that have investigated worker I-9 documentation too carefully have found themselves as defendants in Department of Justice actions alleging national origin bias, or other aspects of discrimination.

    At the same time, employers that accept I-9 documentation at face value can find their operations disrupted and officials facing criminal or civil penalties should ICE find illegal workers during a raid.

    "There's no question that it's a sticky wicket," says McGraw. "It's a minefield that the employers ... need to navigate carefully."

    However, he says, employers can avoid difficulties by completing their vetting process of I-9 documentation after extending the hiring offer. "Once they have made a decision to hire, then legally, they are on very solid ground to vet the individual from an immigration sense."

    Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, based in Washington, says more needs to be done to deport illegal workers and free up those jobs for American workers.

    The Obama administration is "simply turning a blind eye to the people who are working [in the United States] illegally," he says.

    "The administration's position has consistently been unless [the individual is] a serious criminal or a terrorist, they are going to do nothing to remove people who are in the country illegally," he says.

    While McGraw agrees that the administration has changed its focus from employees to employers, he says DHS' initiatives are designed to ensure organizations make serious efforts to comply with the law.

    U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency that oversees E-Verify, has already added biometric information to E-Verify -- such as photos and other information from U.S. passports -- and is working to add fingerprints collected from temporary and permanent visitors to the United States -- to enhance the ability to ferret out document fraud, he says.

    And the effort continues to get authorization to add state driver's-license photos and other information to the system as well, he says.

    The U.S. Chamber's Amador notes that Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to substitute biometric data for the use of E-Verify entirely. That's a path forward that, depending on cost, could be very attractive to business organizations, he says.





    July 16, 2009



    http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp? ... =232911262
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  2. #2
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    This is not difficult. We just need to throw everything at the problem we can.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  3. #3
    Senior Member Bowman's Avatar
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    E-verify is easy, it involves maybe 1% of the work that payroll tax deductions do.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  4. #4
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    What's so "complex" about asking for identification and then checking it against E-Verify for every new hire? But I suspect those making the complex argument are really not interested in the rule of law anyway. They want their cheap labor and an excuse as to why obeying the law is so "complex."

    It's only "complex" for those who want to make it so....
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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