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Employers
and HR staff completing the I9 form process
for a new hire face the difficult task of
determining authenticity of a work
authorization document(s). On one hand, an
employer who blindly accepts a purported
work authorization document which later
turns out to be fraudulent faces penalties
under the document fraud provisions and
could be penalized for knowingly hiring an
alien unauthorized to work. On the other
hand, excessively scrutinizing and then
rejecting a document that is valid exposes
an employer to document abuse allegations
and subsequent fines.
In
the end, employer must tread carefully to
avoid going to either extreme. To assist
in the review of work authorization
documents, employers should ask the
following questions when examining a new
hire’s proof of valid work
authorization.
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Is the document(s) listed on list A
or list B and list C on the back of the I9 form?
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Does the document relate to the
employee? If the document has a picture,
does the photo look like the new hire? If
there is a description of the individual,
does it match the new hire? Is the name
the same?
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Does the document look like similar
documents? If the document claims to be a
driver’s license, does it look like
other driver’s licenses? Does
it contain the same information or have
the same format? Be aware, however, as
there are different versions of “green
cards” circulating. Employers need to
exercise extreme caution and not
inadvertently reject a valid version
simply because it’s one that the
employer is unfamiliar with.
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Is the document an obvious forgery?
HR staff should examine the document to
make sure it hasn’t been tampered with
where a picture has been replaced or a
name change, deletion, or modification has
been made. |
Employers
can promote proper review and acceptance
of work authorization documents by
reviewing the samples shown in the I-9
handbook made available by the USCIS.
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