As the Chief Human Resource Officer of Community State Unive

As the Chief Human Resource Officer of Community State University, you have just been contacted by your legal team. They informed you that your organization has been selected to undergo a Federal I-9 audit. You decided to do a spot check on 5 random departments and noticed that numerous I-9’s were filled out incorrectly. You only have one month before the auditors arrive to do an entire I-9 audit on over 100 departments and the president of the university expects a strategic update on how to tackle this issue in 2 days. For the first part of your post, describe the immigration forms and documents needed to apply for a job. Research and review an I-9 Form and describe the documents that you would produce to establish legal U.S. status. For the second part of your post, recommend a plan of action to correct the deficient forms described in the scenario above. In your discussion, analyze whether the I-9 Form and other documents are enough to establish legal status in the U.S. and are adequate protection for employers. For the third part of your post, justify one additional safeguard that could be added to protect the employer from unknowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.

Solution

Part I

In order to be eligible for employment, immigrants must be able to provide certain documentation. On any I-9 you can find a list of documents that must be presented in order to show that an individual is eligible for work in the U.S. Some of the forms that can be used by immigrants include Form I-551 which is a permanent resident card or Alien Registration Receipt Card (USCIS, 2013). These cards, generally referred to as “green cards”, must be renewed every 10 years (U. S. Immigration, 2014). Another form that can be used by immigrants is the I-766. This form gives temporary residents of the U. S. and certain non-immigrants authorization to accept employment in the U. S. (U. S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011). The I-766 Form, or EAD, must contain a photograph and must show that you are eligible to work in the United States which is done by completing form I-765 (United States Citizenship, 2015).

Part II

In order to correct I-9s that have been filled out incorrectly in Section 1, the employees must be called in to correct the errors. This is done by drawing a line through the original information and entering the correct information, then initialing and dating the correction (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). If the error is in Section 2 or Section 3 of the I-9 form a representative of the employer is authorized to make the necessary correction (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). This is done in the same manner, a line is drawn though the incorrect information, the correct information is entered, and then the corrected information is initialed and dated (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). If the employee filled out an outdated version of the I-9 at the time of hire, the employer can have the employee sign the current version and staple the completed outdated version to the signed current version and notate that the wrong edition was used at the time of hire (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). If more than one error is made on a section, the section may be completely redone on a new form and attached to the old form (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). New forms can be competed major errors need to be corrected (Department of Homeland Security, 2014). However, notes should be included in the file as to the reason why the employer made changes to the existing I-9 or why new I-9’s where completed (Department of Homeland Security, 2014).

The first step would be to do a complete audit of all departments to determine which I-9s need to be corrected. Depending on the size of the department, it may be necessary to have multiple people completing the audits. This may require training on how I-9s are to be completed. Once any needed training has been done and the audits have been accomplished, it will be necessary to determine which I-9s must be corrected by employees and which can be correct by a representative of the employer. These will be separated and the I-9s that can be corrected by the employer will be corrected and refilled. The I-9s that must be corrected by employees will be sorted by department. Each department will notify the employees that they will need to come in to correct their I-9s in the appropriate manner. Depending on the number of I-9s that need to be corrected this could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks depending on how long it takes the employees to report to correct their I-9s. The matter could be corrected well before the audit is to take place.

Part III

There are many different ways to insure that employees are legally eligible to work in the U.S. An additional safe guard that has been implemented is the use of E-Verify. This program is an internet based system that uses information from the I-9 form completed by employees and verifies it with information at the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to verify their eligibility to work within the U. S. (Department of Homeland Security, 2015).

References:

Department of Homeland Security. (2014, March 27). I-9 Central: Self Audit. Retrieved July 21, 2015, from Department of Homeland Security: http://www.uscis.gov/faq-page/i-9-central-self-audits#t17081n47005

Department of Homeland Security. (2015, June 25). What is E-Verify? Retrieved July 23, 2015, from Department of Homeland Security: http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify/what-e-verify

U. S. Department of Homeland Security. (2011). Employment Authorization Documents. Retrieved July 24, 2015, from U. S. Customs and Border Protection: http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ead_i766.pdf

U. S. Immigration. (2014, July 21). What is a Permanent Resident Card or Green card? Retrieved July 24, 2015, from U. S. Immigration: http://kb.immigrationdirect.com/Knowledgebase/What-is-a-Permanent-resident-card-or-Green-card?Keywords=Form+I551&gclid=CID47dLG9MYCFZKBaQodF1EHdg

United States Citizenship. (2015). Employment Authorization Document Form I-765. Retrieved July 24, 2015, from United States Citizenship: http://www.uscitizenship.info/us-visas/i-765-employment-authorization.jsp?r=msn-cpc-i765_us-employment_authorization_card_renewal:m=b?r=bing-organic-search-I-766%27

USCIS. (2013, March 08). I-9 Form with Instructions. Retrieved July 23, 2015, from USCIS.gov: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/form/i-9.pdf