Ten Day ICE Policy

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

An I-9 audit is something businesses hope to avoid, but in the event they do happen Washington Farm Labor Association Director, Dan Fazio, says WAFLA can help get your I-9's in order, perform a self-audit, or assist you with an actual ICE audit. Fazio explains how ICE proceeds with an audit.

FAZIO: The company gets a letter and has to send in all the I-9s and then it's a several month process. It can take anywhere from two months to a year for ICE to get back to the companies. Some time in your I-9 process you get a letter from ICE which states that you have 10 days to basically get rid of workers who have presented fraudulent I-9's.

When I-9 audits were first introduced it was routine for a company to receive several months to rectify the situation, but in March of 2012 ICE came out with the new ten day policy.

FAZIO: The ten business days was to notify the workers and meet with the workers to see if any worker appeals the decision. Inevitably, there's always a couple of workers that appeal and win. Because, let's say they were illegal when they started working for you but they've become legal, then all they have to do is show the correct documents. Or a married woman has the wrong name on a social security card. There can be errors in there so you get that 10-day period to correct any errors.

Fazio says that agriculture is one of the targeted industries for the I-9 audit program and reminds seasonal employers that WAFLA is there to answer questions on current labor laws and employment programs. For more information be sure to visit the Washington Farm Labor Association website at www.wafla.org.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.