Is Your I-9 Audit Notice in the Mail

Is Your I-9 Audit Notice in the Mail? 1by Charles M. Miller On January 20, 2011, ICE Director John Morton focused on I-9 employment verification efforts by Fortune 500 companies by announcing that Tyson Foods, Inc. had joined the IMAGE program, a DHS voluntary immigration compliance program. The ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) is a DHS program which encourages employers to voluntarily adhere to best hiring practices and to submit to an annual I-9 audit by external auditors or independent internal auditing. Tyson, with almost 100,000 employees, is the nation’s largest IMAGE member. Director Morton also announced the creation of a new employment compliance center in Crystal City, VA. The center will be staffed by 15 auditors who will help regional field offices conduct Form I-9 audits of targeted businesses. The mission of the center is to facilitate audits of national companies with large numbers of employees. It is clear that ICE Notices of Inspection, providing companies with 72 hours’ notice requiring the production of their I-9 and related employment forms for their workforce, are forthcoming to the nation’s largest employers. The objective of the ICE audit, a statutory administrative inspection, is a determination whether the employer has violated the prohibitions against knowing hiring or continuing employment of unauthorized aliens and Form I-9 paperwork violations. An ICE administrative Form I-9 inspection must be ...