I know what you're thinking."Jose is a slacker and hasn't been keeping up with his blog."Actually, half of that is correct:  I have NOT been doing a good job on updating Immigration Insider as I SHOULD be, but not because I've been slacking.  The truth is that the I-9 Advantage team has been crackin' the whip and we've finally posted it.  It looks awesome (you go Eric B) and is already the most up-to-date and accurate analysis of state legislation that has been enacted and which affects employers.  The map, however, is very much a work in progress and extremely time consuming.  The reason:  the more Washington fails to deliver solutions, the more misguided legislation pours forth from the states.  Check out our new baby …

Lynn Woolsey Chairwoman of the "Workforce Protection Subcommittee Committee on House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections" [I am not making that up…if it's a typo, that's what was there and I cut and pasted the title] testified before Congress on May 20, 2008.   The subject: what enforcement is doing to the children of illegal migrants.  I will just leave you some of the most important excerpts from her presentation (the BOLD HIGHLIGHTS are my addition, btw):"Today, we will explore the effects of the ICE raids on the children of immigrant parents. Before 2006, theBush Administration`s record on enforcement was not very good…But by 2006, ICE had increased its enforcement activities and made about 4,400 worksite arrests, more t…

SHRM reported yesterday that their President and CEO, Susan R. Meisinger, was in Washington last week urging Congress to replace E-Verify with NEVA.  Their words: "The employee authorization plan supported by SHRM would be implemented under the proposed New Employee Verification Act (NEVA) (H.R. 5515)—introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas—Meisinger said at a May 6, 2008, House Subcommittee on Social Security hearing on the impact employment verification will have on the Social Security Administration.  NEVA is designed to transform the current paper-based verification process into a state-of-the-art electronic system that is accurate, reliable, cost-efficient, easy-to-use and that shares responsibility among government, employers and employees, she said."As I unde…

(*I humbly apologize to my readers for this appalling headline but it proved irresistible and I may never have an opportunity for it again.)[Readers, take note:  I’ve been telling you for about five years that the threat of jail time against I-9 violating company officials would become a primary weapon of enforcement any day.  That has been increasingly the case, but the enforcement we’ve seen has been driven by Homeland Security and other Federal agencies.  Now, armed with discretion and reflective of the public demand for prosecution of violating employers, Federal Courts are getting into the game, and it’s getting very ugly very fast.]The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reported May 1st that a federal judge socked it to Newport-News based fishing enterprise Peabody Corp …

Nik Steinberg wrote a heck of an editorial in The Christian Science Monitor and the sheer logic of it should have the feds blushing.  Here’s a few choice excerpts…"Imagine living in a state where local cops can stop anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, and arrest them if they lack proof of citizenship. Last month, Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri signed an executive order directing state police to enforce federal immigration law, which will let them do just that.""such laws make communities less safe by discouraging immigrants from cooperating with local police. Police depend on residents to report crimes and identify criminals. But when immigrants fear that talking to officers may lead to their deportation, they remain quiet.""Proponents …

I consider the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC) to be a pretty credible organization as far interests groups go.  The main value of their efforts is in serving as a reality check for governmental "initiatives" designed to "help".  For this reason, the results of their recently commissioned study caught my eye, and it is yet another glaring revelation of just how oblivious Washington is to the precarious state of our national economy, Wall Street bailouts notwithstanding.According to the study, performed by former OMB economist/now-consultant Richard Belzer, the USG’s proposed plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions in lost wages.  The study will be among public comments submitted to …

SHRM headed to Oklahoma Monday to encourage small business owners to lobby their congressional delegation in support of the immigration reform bill. the organization is supporting.  The measure would require employees and applicants to prove their identity to employers by providing biometric information, and would strengthen penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, among other provisions. Bob Carragher, manager of government relations for the Society for Human Resource Management, was among those speaking to Oklahoma small business owners at the annual Small Business Day At The Capitol event.Currently, Oklahoma’s law mandates the use of E-Verify system, available online. According to Mr. Carragher, in 2006, when government officials raided six Swift & Co. meatpacking p…

I’ve been pondering the quagmire in which ICE’s enforcement actions placed Pilgrim’s Pride recently.  Imagine this scenario:You are a corporate compliance manager/counsel/etc. and the phone rings.  A person claiming to be from ICE advises you that your company is going to be subjected to an I-9 audit and you have 3 days to get it together.  Oh, and by the way, “the extent of your cooperation will determine what sanctions will be determined if anything is non-compliant.”To those of us who live this stuff everyday, that last sentence is translated as roughly “do what we say or you can go to jail.”  Given the fact that there probably isn’t a company in the U.S. which is 100% compliant, things get scary.  Suddenly, it isn’t the company and government sorting out discre…

In the midst of the current chaos caused by the Feds and their "no holds barred" enforcement efforts, one has to wonder if anyone in Washington is aware that they have effectively placed U.S. employers in a irreconcilable Catch-22, one which has the potential to disrupt our economy far beyond the sub-prime/housing sector mess by further destabilizing the agriculture, food service, hospitality and other sectors.We can only look at the unfolding storyline from a given snapshot in time, and here is where we sit today: ICE is stalking the U.S. in search of employers with defective I-9 compliance, which is pretty much like scouring the beach for sand. (I can tell you that after 17 years of practicing immigration compliance law, I have never conducted an I-9 audit which failed to produ…