What are best practice tips for your immigration policy?

Navigating the maze that has become immigration law is a complicated at best. However, attorney Paul Zulkie provided the following policy tips and best practices suggestions for employers that could make things a little easier:

• The best run employer immigraton-related policies and programs are centralized and run by human resources with input from legal counsel.

• Employers should not rely on the attorney representing the foreigner, or permit the would-be employee to drive the immigration process. While there are few prosecutions, it is the employer that makes the representations on an application and the employer is responsible throughout the process.

• The DHS reports that the incident of fraud is higher for small employers, so small employers are more likely to receive requests such as those for evidence of their ability to pay wages.

• When making the decision whether to pursue a green card application, employers should use common sense because, while they might want to sponsor a candidate, they will likely receive many applications during the posting process, and a decision must be made as to who will bear the costs involved.

• Under the Bush administration, there has been more emphasis on enforcement, with a priority on criminal prosecutions and high impact raids. The prosecution of Wal-Mart, Tyson and Swift (for employing illegal aliens) has changed the level of employer concern about worker documentation. The new no-match regulations (pertaining to notice of potentially invalid Social Security numbers) provide a safe harbor for employers, but also mandate that an employer can be deemed to have constructive knowledge of unlawful employment status, and thus, be set up for successful prosecution.

• Employers should be aware that the new Form I-9, although basically the same as the old, deletes items from the list of documents that establish identity and employment eligibility. Notably, expired documents can no longer be used.

• Although DHS is pushing more employers into using its E-Verify online employment verification program, data base errors are a big problem. The Social Security Administration admits there is an eight-to-ten percent error rate. A greater problem exists among the Hispanic community, where two sir names may be used, often inconsistently.

• A new regulation requires that all federal contractors use E-Verify. This is a huge problem for large corporations to implement because many of these workers move frequently, and existing workers must be verified. (CCH editorial note: The Obama Administration has put this rule on hold until May 21, 2009.)

Source:What In-House Counsel Need to Know About Immigration Law, presented by Paul Zulkie, managing principle of Zulkie Partners, LLC, a Chicago law firm concentrating in business immigration law, at a Chicago Bar Association seminar on January 8, 2009.