���ϲ�����

An increase in I-9 audits over the past few years has spurred the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to issue for employers that are the subject of an I-9 audit.  DOJ’s guidance shares best practices and steps employers should take to avoid charges of discrimination when faced with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) I-9 audit. DOJ suggests that employers do:

• Develop a transparent process for interacting with employees during an ICE audit, including communicating with employees that the employer is subject to an ICE audit;
• Provide workers with a reasonable amount of time to correct discrepancies in their records identified by ICE;
• Treat all workers in the same manner during the audit, without regard to national origin or citizenship status;
• Inform unions (if applicable) of the ICE audit and determine whether a collective bargaining agreement triggers any obligations;
• Inform employees from whom they seek information that they are seeing this information in response to an ICE audit;
• Communicate in writing with employees, describing the specific basis for the discrepancy and/or what information is needed from them; and
• Follow the instructions on the ICE notice and the instructions on Form I-9 when correcting errors on the forms.

In addition, DOJ suggests that employers do not:

• Selectively verify the employment eligibility of certain employees based on their national origin or citizenship status;
• Terminate or suspend employees without providing them with notice and a reasonable opportunity to present valid Form I-9 documents;
• Require employees to provide additional evidence of employment eligibility or more documents than ICE is requiring you to obtain;
• Limit the range of documents that employees are allowed to present for purposes of the Form I-9; or
• Treat employees differently at any point during the audit because they look or sound foreign, or based on assumptions about whether they are authorized to work in the U.S.

Because I-9 audits no longer involve multiple ICE agents arriving with guns, as was common during worksite raids in previous eras, some companies may assume that a notice of inspection (NOI) received from ICE is merely a formality and is not taken seriously, until it is too late.  ���ϲ����� has several resources that will provide guidance to employers who receive NOIs, including ���ϲ�����’s , which outlines what to do when a NOI is received. For additional resources and guidance on I-9 audits, visit the section of the ���ϲ����� website.  The primary category is “Other Legal Issues” and the secondary category is “Immigration and Employment Eligibility.”