Feds to start immigration crackdown on contractors

WASHINGTON — For federal contractors, it's time to start checking whether employees are able to legally work in the United States.

Beginning Tuesday, the federal government is requiring federal contractors to use the E-Verify system to check the immigration and citizenship status of the people they hire and assign to new federal contracts.

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Contractors have 30 days from the date a contract is awarded to enroll in E-Verify, and 90 days to start submitting information on new hires and certain current workers. Contractors have the option of checking their entire work force, once they notify the government of their intent to do so. They also will be responsible for requiring subcontractors to use E-Verify.

U.S. Intensifies Audits of Employers

John Morton, the new chief of U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said that the agency is set to increase the number of companies it will audit and systematically impose fines on violators. Violations could also lead to criminal charges, he said.

E-Verify Verges On Expansion While Congress Weighs Immigration Reform
Used voluntarily by more than 137,000 employers, E-Verify checks new-hire information against Social Security and DHS databases. DHS announced in July that it would implement on September 8 a regulation compelling federal contractors to use E-Verify.

If Immigration Audits Your Employees' Legal Status

The U.S. Homeland Security Dept. under the Obama Administration has continued a Bush-era policy of focusing on employers when enforcing immigration laws. Hiring records, even for small and medium-size businesses, are coming under additional scrutiny, and fines are being levied for violations.

E-Verify Under Fire

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced that it will rescind a rule outlining actions employers should take when they receive a “no-match” letter from Social Security Administration indicating possible illegal employment… DHS indicated that it still intends to pursue more recently proposed rules that would require federal contractors to enroll in the government’s E-Verify system and check the work authorization of all new hires and all employees assigned to a federal contract.

SHRM Urges Virginia Assembly to Reject E-Verify Employer Mandate
In testimony today on behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), former Congressman Bruce A. Morrison urged the Virginia Small Business Commission to reject proposals to mandate the use of E-Verify by Virginia employers.

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, HR Executive Online

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.

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USCIS issues guidance on the Form I-9's expiration date

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced June 26, 2009, that the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification (Rev. 02/02/09) will continue to be valid for use beyond June 30, 2009. USCIS has requested that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approve the continued use of the current version of the form. While this request is pending, the Form I-9 will not expire, said the agency. USCIS will provide an update when the extension is approved. Employers will be able to use either the Form I-9 with the new revision date or the Form I-9 with the 02/02/09 revision date at the bottom of the form. For more information on the Form I-9, please visit: http://www.uscis.gov/i-9.

Pursuant to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, all employers, agricultural recruiters and referrers for a fee are required to verify the identity and employment authorization of each individual they hire for employment in the United States, regardless of that individual's citizenship. As part of the verification process, employers and employees must complete the Form I-9, with employers retaining the form for a statutorily established period of time (three years after the employee's date of hire or one year after the date that employment is discharged) and make the form available for inspection for certain government officials.

The documents designated as acceptable for the Form I-9 are divided among three lists: List A—documents that establish both identity and employment authorization; List B—documents that establish only identity; and List C—documents that establish only employment authorization. Many work authorization documents must be renewed on or before their expiration date, requiring the Form I-9 to be updated. This process is called reverification. The Department of Homeland Security recommends using a "tickler" system to keep track of employees with documents of limited-duration work authorization.

USCIS issued a reminder that effective April 3, 2009, all US employers are required to use the revised Form I-9. The revised Form I-9 reflects changes made to the list of documents acceptable for the form pursuant to an interim rule (http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-29874.pdf) issued in the Federal Register. The interim rule narrowed the list of acceptable identity documents and further specifies that expired documents are not considered acceptable forms of identification. (www.uscis.gov.)

Employer use of federal E-Verify program on the rise

Construction company CEO David Dominguez no longer worries about inadvertently hiring workers who are in this country illegally. That's because he uses E-Verify, the federal program that allows him to quickly check the legal status of potential employees.
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The voluntary federal program has seen a rapid growth in use this year, Department of Homeland Security records show. More than 1,000 employers are signing up each week on average, and employment checks are approaching 200,000 a week.

E-Verify federal contractor rule delayed until Sept. 8th

For the fourth time, the federal government has delayed the effective date of a rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to require that certain federal contractors and subcontractors use the federal government's E-Verify program, announced the US Chamber of Commerce, one of the litigants in the case challenging the legality of the rule. The parties have agreed to delay the effective date of the rule to September 8, 2009. The rule has been delayed in order to allow the Obama Administration more time to complete its review of the rule. The decision to delay was reached by agreement between the parties to the lawsuit. Therefore, as it stands now, on or after September 8, contracting officers must include the new E-Verify clause in affected contracts. In addition, contracting officers should modify, on a bilateral basis, existing contracts to include the clause on or after that date. the Federal Acquisitions Regulatory Councils will publish a notice of delay in the Federal Register on June 5.

Immigration Enforcement Targets Employers

Homeland Security chief Napolitano says the agency will step up employment verification efforts using the controversial E-Verify system
The Obama Administration plans to intensify efforts begun under the Bush Administration to crack down on companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, according to Janet Napolitano, the new head of the of Homeland Security Dept.

Effective Date of E-Verify Rule Delayed Third Time

The federal government has pushed back, for the third time, the effective date of a new rule requiring federal contractors to use the federal government’s E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system. The latest effective date is June 30, 2009.

E-Verify is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ system that organizations with federal contracts would be required to use to determine if their new hires and existing employees were authorized to work in the United States.

The rule, which would amend an existing regulation, originally was to take effect Jan. 15, 2009.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) challenged the legality of the rule in a lawsuit filed Dec. 23, 2008, noting that the system’s reliability has come into question and that use of the system was originally intended to be voluntary. A Government Accountability Office report to Congress reiterated long-standing criticisms of E-Verify, SHRM Online reported July 14, 2008.

SHRM is concerned, says Nancy Hammer, manager of SHRM’s regulatory and judicial affairs, “that the rule exceeds the government’s authority by mandating use of the E-Verify program, which was designed as a voluntary pilot project, and by mandating the re-verification of existing federal contract employees, currently not allowed.”

E-Verify would apply to federal contracts with a performance period of more than 120 days and a value of more than $100,000, according to an April 16, 2009. statement from Andrew B. Greenfield, a partner in Frogmen, Del Rey, Bernsen and Loewy, LLP, a Washington, D.C. law firm that writes periodically about legal issues for SHRM Online.

Service and construction subcontracts of a covered contract would be required to include the E-Verify clause if the subcontract’s value is more than $3,000, he noted.

Exemptions to the rule would include contracts for items that are available commercially “off the shelf” or that require only minor modifications, federal contracts for food and agricultural products shipped as bulk cargo and contracts for work performed outside the United States.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors, HR Policy Association and the American Council on International Personnel joined SHRM in the lawsuit, which seeks to have the planned rule rescinded. Earlier, the U.S. Justice Department rescheduled the date from Jan. 15 to Feb. 20, 2009.

SHRM is hopeful, Hammer said, that “this additional delay of the rule allows more time for the government to re-evaluate its position and consider SHRM’s concerns.” In light of the delay in the rule’s effective date, she added, the parties have agreed to extend the stay of the lawsuit.

A notice delaying the rule until June 30, 2009 was published in the April 17, 2009 Federal Register.

Homeland Security: Employers can no longer use expired documents in hiring

Beginning in February, employers in the United States will not be allowed to use expired documents to verify workers' employment eligibility.

The interim rule, published on Wednesday in the Federal Register by the Homeland Security Department, aims to streamline the employment eligibility verification process and crack down on fraud. As of Feb. 2, 2009, expired U.S. passports or state-issued driver's licenses and other outdated identification cards will no longer qualify as valid documentation for Form I-9. Social Security cards will not be affected by the change because they do not expire.

"Expired documents are prone to fraudulent use in the Form I-9 process by aliens seeking unauthorized employment," the Federal Register notice stated.

Employers must fill out Form I-9 for all new hires to verify their identity and authorization to work in the United States. The form, mandated by the 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act, is a key component of DHS' controversial Electronic Employment Verification System. Employers still can use the paper version, but there also is I-9 software that integrates identification information into E-Verify.

New hires can present various forms of identification to prove their work eligibility. The list of approved documents is divided into three categories: List A, which includes documents that verify identity and employment authorization; List B, which confirms identity only; and List C, which certifies employment authorization only. U.S. passports are included on List A, while driver's licenses fall into category B. Workers must either provide one document from List A, or one document each from lists B and C.

The interim rule also eliminates several types of identification included on List A: temporary resident cards and older versions of the employment authorization card/document (Forms I-688, I-688A and I-688B). DHS no longer issues those forms of ID.

While the new regulation takes effect on Feb. 2, the department is accepting comments and could modify the final rule.

Regulation Requires Federal Contractors to Use E-Verify

Federal contractors will be required to use a government-run electronic employment eligibility verification system starting early next year under a regulation announced Friday, November 14. The Department of Homeland Security said the 274-page rule will go into effect January 15, 2009. Companies that win a federal contract of more than $100,000—and subcontractors with contracts of greater than $3,000—will have to enroll in E-Verify, the electronic verification mechanism, within 30 days of being awarded the work. The firms will have to check the eligibility of existing and new employees who directly work on federal contracts. The regulation was first issued as an executive order by President Bush in June. The original regulatory proposal received 1,600 public comments. Currently, about 92,000 companies use E-Verify. The contractor rule could add an additional 150,000 to 180,000 employers. Under the system, new-hire information from I-9 forms is electronically compared with Social Security and DHS databases. Many employer groups have criticized E-Verify for being inaccurate, inefficient and unable to detect identity theft. They argue that the 4.1 percent error rate in the Social Security database could lead to millions of people being incorrectly ruled ineligible for work. Supporters of E-Verify say the system confirms 96 percent of queries instantly and has an error rate of less than 1 percent. The program, which is voluntary, has become a foundation of the Bush administration’s stepped-up work-site enforcement efforts. The crackdown intensified after the demise of comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate in 2007. Observers say the federal contractor requirement is a way for the DHS to significantly boost E-Verify participation. “The administration is trying to accomplish through regulation what it cannot accomplish through legislation,” said Eric Bord, a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius in Washington. The fate of the regulation, however, is not necessarily settled. Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has 60 days to reject a regulation. But the E-Verify rule is scheduled to go into effect before the new Congress is seated in January. The current Congress probably wouldn’t act in a lame-duck session next week. In addition, Congress could stop a rule by refusing to appropriate money for it. Beyond legislative challenges, businesses could sue to stop the implementation. Employer groups are questioning the legality re-verifying existing workers. They also say that the implementation is occurring too quickly. “I don’t think the last word on the E-Verify contractor rule has been spoken,” said Mike Aitken, director of governmental affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management. After Congress resumes work next year, it will have to reauthorize the law that established E-Verify, which is scheduled to expire in March. The program would have sunsetted this month if Congress hadn’t extended it to March earlier this fall. It’s unlikely that President-elect Barack Obama will oppose the contractor rule, according to Bord. “I would be surprised if an Obama administration’s first initiative in immigration would be to rescind something that is seen by the public as an enforcement tool,” Bord said. He also anticipates an extension of the E-Verify law. “The Obama administration will take a very low-key approach to E-Verify and endorse its quiet reauthorization in March in order to avoid opening the Pandora’s box of comprehensive reform,” Bord said. Ultimately, employer groups such as the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce, which is led by SHRM, want to overhaul E-Verify. They are promoting legislation that would create what they call a better and more secure approach to electronic verification. “Instead of extending E-Verify to federal contractors, we should take the time to make improvements to the system,” Aitken said. While Congress continues to mull E-Verify policy, Bord says all companies should prepare for its expansion. “If you are a non-contractor, you need to see this as a preview of things to come because states will increasingly regulate in this area,” he said. - Mark Schoeff

Contractors must verify immigration status
Federal Times - USA
Contractors would report the immigration status of their employees using the Homeland Security Department’s E-Verify online system.

Final E-Verify rule kinder to small businesses
Nextgov - Washington,DC,USA
Under a final rule published in the Federal Register on Friday, companies only will need to insert a clause requiring vetting through the E-Verify system

Government to Limit Planned Crackdown on Illegal Immigrants
Washington Post - United States
The Bush administration has made the work eligibility system, called E-Verify, a main pillar of its fight against illegal immigration, proposing to make its

Feds reissue 'no-match' rule

The Department of Homeland Security reissued its Social Security "no-match" rule for employers Thursday, and said it will seek court approval for the requirement. A federal judge had ordered a preliminary injunction against the rule in October 2007 to prevent it from taking effect.

Opponents argued the rule relies on an error-prone Social Security Administration database and would result in legal workers being fired and discrimination against those who look or sound foreign. Those that sued to stop the rule include the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.

The no-match rule requires employers to take a series of steps if the Social Security Administration notifies them of workers whose Social Security numbers don't match their names on file. The steps could include firing workers who can't resolve the match within 90 days. If employers don't take action, the Department of Homeland Security would consider them to have knowledge that they hired illegal workers if they are later discovered in an on-site investigation.

Social Security numbers that don't match may be the result of a clerical error or name change, but they might also come from a fake number given by an undocumented worker.

Border Insecurity: Immigration Reform and Talent Management

Comprehensive immigration reform intertwines illegal workers and national security into a single emotional debate. But it's the talent and performance implications that have many talent managers feeling insecure.

As election season heats up in the United States, comprehensive immigration reform efforts have cooled off. With skilled talent continuing to come at a premium, more and more organizations are feeling the resulting pinch.

Read more.

States do fed's jobs on immigration

What most states are turning to is E-Verify – the electronic verification system designed to ensure that people working here are legally entitled to. Gerri Ratliff, who is in charge of the E-Verify program for the homeland security department, reported that only 15 states haven't had some piece of legislation introduced or passed on this program.

Checking citizenship made mandatory
President Bush's executive order directs federal contractors to finally do what federal agencies already do -- use the E-Verify Internet system to confirm a worker's legal status within seconds.

Millions of contract employees to be vetted for legal employment status
Federal contractors will be required to vet nearly 4 million current and future employees through an online government database to verify their legal working status, under a proposed rule published last week in the Federal Register.

Agents arrest five supervisors at poultry plant
Federal agents have arrested five supervisors at a Greenville poultry plant as part of an investigation into alleged immigration violations, authorities said Wednesday.

Sun Valley labor problem focuses on work authorization challenges
As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is making its presence felt at more than Sun Valley Floral Farms.

Excerpted Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Commerce Secretary Gutierrez at the State of Immigration Address

One critical tool for our success is giving the employer the means to check whether the applicant for a job is in fact presenting a valid social security number and name that match what is in our government databases. And the tool used to do this is E-Verify. This system has been a tremendous success, and the proof of the pudding is the marketplace itself. Every week on average, about a thousand new employers join this program. And I will tell you that at this point, I will estimate that is almost -- maybe actually more than ten percent of the new hires being hired in the United States are currently being run through this E-Verify system.

We have almost 70,000 employers currently enrolled. The system works. Of those workers who are legal, 99.5 percent of them roughly are verified essentially instantaneously. And if those workers who have a mismatch -- legal workers who we estimate to be about a half a percent, they are able generally to resolve their issue within less than two days.

Report critical of effect of state's employer sanctions law

Report critical of effect of state's employer sanctions law
Fewer than 15 percent of Arizona employers - about 20,000 - have signed up to use the federal government's E-Verify system to check whether a new employee's name matches the employee's Social Security number, according to the Immigration Policy Center.

Best Compliance Practices and Immigration
The government no longer is issuing small fines to employers who commit serious Form I-9 violations. ICE now is conducting lengthy criminal investigations that result in indictments of company owners, executives, managers and other company personnel involved in these illegal activities. Criminal charges include harboring illegal aliens, money laundering and/or knowingly hiring illegal aliens. These offenses can carry a potential 10-20 year prison sentence, plus forfeiture of all company assets and revenues utilized in this illegal activity.

Businesses Learn Requirements of New Immigration LawRecently passed Mississippi Immigration legislation has businesses cramming to learn new hiring requirements. Starting July first, employers are required to verify the immigration status of new workers so companies from across the state participated in a seminar on the federal E-Verify.

Federal database assures a legal work force
Originally known as the Basic Pilot program and presented as a mandatory method of verifying work eligibility, E-Verify is presently a voluntary system that should be expanded, better funded and mandatory, with the goal of eliminating the magnet that draws illegals to our nation.

Immigration reform must be more than a 'Band-Aid'
Given that Senate and House conferees are trying for the second time this legislative session to compromise on a bill, we're not very optimistic they will produce a bill that accomplishes what they say they want to accomplish -- getting tough on businesses that hire illegal workers and thus taking away the reason many illegal immigrants are here.

Democrats Decry Immigration Raid at Iowa Processing Plant
Democrats are criticizing a recent government work-site raid targeted at illegal employees, asserting that the action separated parents from their children and devastated the local community. They called for a greater focus on employers who are breaking the law.

On immigration, bluster but little action
Tougher penalties for identity theft. A ban on so-called "sanctuary cities." New penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants. They were among proposals declared a priority…

Blunt addresses immigration law
Gov. Matt Blunt addressed House Bill 1549 during Branson’s “Capital for the Day.” Blunt highlighted the recent action taken by the General Assembly and reported he does not think the E-Verify system will cause significant delay.

Immigration Theater
Federal immigration officials raided an Iowa meatpacking plant this month in what is being called the largest operation of its kind in U.S. history. Nearly 400 of the plant's 900 employees were arrested on immigration charges.

SHRM Asks for More Time, Protection in New ‘No-Match’ Rule
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has submitted comments on the Department of Homeland Security’s Supplemental Proposed Rule clarifying a rule it finalized in 2007 on employer guidance in handling Social Security “no-match” letters regarding work eligibility.

US database verifies immigration status
Rhode Island is one of five states –– the others being Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma –– that require all state agencies and companies that do business with their state to use the E-Verify system. Rhode Island is also among 15 states considering legislation to mandate the use of the E-Verify system for all new hires.

Father of E-Verify Mixes It Up With SHRM Over Government’s ...
The problem with E-Verify, opponents argue, is that it relies on the current database, which has a 4.1 percent error rate and could mistakenly declare millions of people ineligible for employment.

Senate should now approve immigration reform bill
The House proved by its vote last week that it's serious about dealing with the immigration problem in this state.

Businesses hire agents to use E-Verify system
The Legal Arizona Workers Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, requires employers in the state to use E-Verify or risk losing a defense in court if prosecuted. A company risks losing its business licenses if caught knowingly or intentionally hiring illegal workers. As of May 3, nearly 24,000 Arizona employers had signed up for E-Verify.

Competing House bills use databases to check workers' legal status
Bill would force companies to use government databases to verify the legal status of workers.

Missouri House endorses E-Verify legislation
The bill would require employers to use the federal E-Verify database to check if their newly-hired employees are eligible to work in the United States.

A Business Sparked by the Online I-9
Vendors that are marketing I-9 compliance software include established background checking and hiring management firms such as Kroll…

Feds want your photo on E-Verify
The federal agency is talking with the Arizona Department of Transportation and other states' agencies "to incorporate driver's license photographs into E-Verify," according to a report on E-Verify from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Senate gives initial OK to immigration bill
SC proposal would require that private employers verify each workers’ legal status using either a South Carolina driver’s license, a federal electronic verification system or a new state form similar to the federal I-9 form that would be monitored by state regulators.

Mayday for undocumented workers
Again this May Day, immigrant workers are filling the streets, making the same point. Yet today, the federal government is taking actions that make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, are passing measures that go even further.

RI House OKs bill requiring employers to use E-Verify
Under the plan, any employer with three or more workers would be required to confirm through an online government database whether the new hire is authorized to work in this country.

RI House OKs immigration billThe bill, adopted 53 to 17, would force all companies in Rhode Island to use a federal database called E-Verify to determine whether new hires are in the country legally.

DHS Extends Optional Practical Training for Certain Highly Skilled Foreign Students Employed by Businesses Enrolled in E-Verify

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released an interim final rule extending the period of Optional Practical Training from 12 to 29 months for qualified F-1 non-immigrant students with degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics who are employed by businesses enrolled in the E-Verify program.

E-Verify Immigration Program Draws Criticism
California is one of the few states that have implemented the E-Verify program, which verifies the legal status of job candidates for 52,000 participating employers in a handful of states could expand rapidly into the rest of the nation experts say.

Day-labor numbers dropping in Orange
New ordinances cracking down on businesses allowing day workers to congregate add to declining numbers in Orange County, CA.

Immigration deal reached
SC legislative negotiators will allow private employers to use a variety of methods to verify the legal status of their employees, including the federal I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form and E-Verify.

Sanford reiterates call for strong immigration bill
Currently, the SC House version of the bill does not contain any verification requirements for private employers. The Senate version contains a verification requirement for private employers, but permits it to be satisfied by using the failed Federal I-9 form verification process. The I-9 process is an ineffective system already employed by the federal government in which fraudulent documents can be used to satisfy the verification requirements, and federal law prohibits employers or states from checking the validity of the documents.

A step in the right direction
Senate Bill 2988 requires all employers in Mississippi to confirm the legal status of all new employees by using the E-Verify Program, the federal online employment verification system. The bill makes it a discriminatory practice to dismiss a U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien while retaining an employee who is illegally in our country, and makes it a felony for an illegal alien to accept or perform employment.

More employers verifying immigration status
Employers have screened about 2.5 million new hires in the first six months of fiscal 2008 through E-Verify, the Department of Homeland Security's database that determines which employees can legally work in the U.S.

59 Arrested On Illegal Working Charges At Lansdowne
The investigation started in early July 2007 after a routine inspection of all I-9 employment eligibility verification forms at the resort. Through analysis of the I-9 forms, ICE agents identified information that led them to suspect that many of the employees were using fraudulent documents or had stolen someone else's identity to secure jobs at the resort.

Recent news on immigration legislation

Feds Take Hard Line on Immigrant Hiring
On March 26, the Department of Homeland Security reissued a rule that would force companies to either resolve within 90 days discrepancies between a worker’s name and Social Security number or fire the employee. It would effectively make so-called “no-match” letters evidence of the illegal hiring.

Office of Special Counsel's Antidiscrimination Guidance for Employers Following the DHS Safe-Harbor Procedures
The Department of Homeland Security’s Safe-Harbor Procedures for Employers Who Receive a No-Match Letter offers employers who receive no-match letters from the Social Security Administration a safe-harbor in a related immigration enforcement action if those employers follow the series of steps set forth in the no-match rule to ensure that the information provided by affected employees to confirm their work eligibility is genuine.

Illegal Immigration Is A Facility Management Issue
With reform a hot political topic, changes could significantly redefine the workforce.

Kansas Immigration Bills
With the House and Senate passing different immigration bills, the focus moves to what their negotiators will draft as a final version, and some say they'll be combining measures weakened to satisfy the business community.

Measure provides incentives for firms to use E-Verify
Arizona companies that don't check the legal status of new workers would lose access to government contracts and special economic incentives under the terms of proposed legislation approved Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Kansas Immigration bill passes House
Among other things, the measure increases penalties for using false documents to gain illegal employment and creates the crime of helping an illegal immigrant to vote. It also creates criminal penalties for businesses that illegally treat workers as independent subcontractors.

ID checks may be forced
Businesses across South Carolina would have to check new hires through a federal work-eligibility database under some versions of the state's planned crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Department of Homeland Security’s No-Match Program Shifts Burden ...
It’s estimated that 800,000 employers could receive notices; representing a fundamental shift in how businesses are forced to handle the issue of illegal workers. The No-Match program is an enormous step in increased workplace raids looking for undocumented workers.

Immigration reform turns into a minefield for lawmakers
Immigrants break the law if they are here illegally. Businesses that exploit their cheap labor break the law. The law should be enforced.

Five IFCO managers indicted on federal charges
A grand jury has returned a six-count felony indictment against five current managers of the Pallet Management Division of IFCO Systems North America (IFCO). The indictment charges the managers with engaging in a conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, to encourage and induce, and to transport illegal aliens.