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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) announced on April 5, 2016, that the “University of Northern New Jersey” (“UNNJ”) had been a sting operation for the past two-and-a-half years. Run by Homeland Security Investigations Newark, UNNJ had a plausible website and an address in Cranford, New Jersey. Twenty-one persons, characterized as brokers, recruiters, and employers, were …

Periodic internal I-9 audits are considered an employer “best practice” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Before conducting an internal I-9 audit, however, employers need to understand how to address a range of issues likely to be identified.

In a Technical Assistance Letter (dated October 23, 2015), the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair…

Earlier this month, a Washington fruit orchard, Broetje Orchards, settled an ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) audit and agreed to pay ICE $2.25 million in a lump-sum fine.  The fine was part of a settlement with ICE to resolve the orchard’s violations of the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

According to ICE, Broetje Orchards…

Given the employer’s status as a “Second Offender,” the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) ordered that a penalty of $329,895, assessed by ICE agents involved in investigating the company’s I-9 practices, be upheld.  In USA v. Durable, Inc., presiding Judge Helen K. Thomas recognized that the employer had incurred 300 I-9…

Five franchisees and operators of 7-Eleven, Inc. stores located throughout Long Island, New York and Virginia plead guilty to committing wire fraud and concealing and harboring unauthorized foreign national employees, the DHS has announced.  The September 22nd pleas were the result of an investigation that culminated in the June 16, 2013 raids of more…

The Acting Assistant Inspector General for Audits with the DHS Office of the Inspector General, Mark Bell, has made three recommendations for improving ICE’s implementation of its worksite enforcement strategy based on an audit of the agency (www.oig.dhs.gov).  ICE is the DHS agency responsible for implementing the nation’s worksite enforcement strategy and protecting…

The failure of Congress to agree on a new budget for the Fiscal Year (beginning October 1) is resulting in a furlough of more than 800,000 federal workers and government agencies temporarily closing or cutting back the operations of numerous federal facilities and the suspension of many services. This is the first government shutdown in…

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, is initiating  hundreds of worksite investigations  by serving Notices of Inspection and Administrative Subpoenas on employers this week—many requesting that the requested documents be delivered Tuesday after the Labor Day.  HR managers and in-house counsel may find less time to holiday.

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Author:  Harry J. Joe.

Financial burdens imposed upon an employer by non-immigration-related governmental entities is a factor that can be considered in lowering the assessed civil monetary penalty for the employer’s failure to complete the I-9 Employment Verification Forms for its employees in a proper and timely manner, even though such burdens were temporary, the

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