Temperatures aren’t the only things heating up this week. On Wednesday, June 15, the Obama administration shifted the ever-intensifying immigration dialogue back to federal turf when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it will begin conducting its second round of immigration audits this year.

Authorities with ICE, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, declined to name the businesses that will be targeted or their locations, but at least 1,000 companies soon will be subject to inspection of their I-9 forms and other hiring records. The businesses range in size and reportedly include those “critical to infrastructure and key resources.”

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Immigration reform legislation continues to heat up on both the state and federal fronts. In the midst of protests surrounding a new Arizona law that critics see as a license for racial profiling, a group of Democratic senators unveiled a new federal bill on April 29 that would require employers to use biometric social security cards to verify the status of new hires and hike monetary penalties for illegal hires by 300 percent.

Biometric Card

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By Christopher L. Thomas

The federal government is making it clear to employers that immigration enforcement is a priority for the Obama administration, and that employers failing to comply with the law face severe consequences.

On November 19, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent out a notice that it intends to audit the I-9 forms of 1,000 employers. The audits are in addition to news from July in which 654 employers were informed that their I-9 forms would be scrutinized. Additional waves of audits are also expected.

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Beginning Sept. 8, 2009, federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to use the E-Verify system to ensure their employees are legally authorized to work in the United States.The requirement is designed to stop federal contractors and subcontractors from hiring illegal immigrants.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced this week that the Obama administration will require employers that are awarded federal contracts to use E-Verify. The requirement for federal contractors to use E-Verify was originally set to go into place in January 2009, but was postponed so that the new administration could review the new rule.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is calling its decision to audit hiring records at 652 businesses nationwide a “bold, new audit initiative” that utilizes inspections as one of the most powerful tools the federal government has to enforce employment and immigration laws.

ICE issued Notices of Inspection to the 652 employers on July 1 to alert them that their hiring records will be inspected to determine whether they are complying with employment eligibility verification laws and regulations, according to a statement from the agency. The mass of notices is more than ICE issued throughout all of last fiscal year.

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On April 30, the Department of Homeland Security distributed its Worksite Enforcement Strategy describing how it plans to step up its efforts to enforce immigration laws. The new strategy focuses on reducing the demand for illegal employment by targeting employers that knowingly hire illegal workers as well as the workers themselves.

Last week, updated guidance was distributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Effective immediately, ICE will focus its resources on the criminal prosecution of employers that knowingly hire illegal workers. Only 135 of the more than 6,000 arrests related to worksite enforcement in 2008 were employers.

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