Almost one year ago, I wrote an article describing the potential changes in immigration that we may see in the upcoming year, “Keeping Up With All the Potential Changes to US Immigration.” Today’s article will provide an update on those proposed changes and explain the many other immigration policy updates and enforcement actions we have seen so far in 2018. These changes have all been part of the current administration’s efforts to build an “invisible wall,” with the overarching goal of limiting legal immigration. While family separation and refugee policies have stolen headlines in recent months, there has also been a quiet movement by government agencies to revise other long-held immigration policies. These furtive changes make it even harder for companies that rely on skilled and legally employed foreign nationals, and more difficult still for those foreign nationals to continue to live and work in the United States.

Worksite Compliance

In the past several months, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has kicked up compliance actions. While attorneys and employers suspected I-9 enforcement would be on the current administration’s agenda, ICE exceeded expectations by quadrupling worksite enforcement actions. ICE opened 3,510 worksite investigations and conducted 2,282 I-9 audits between October 2017 and May 2018—an almost 60 percent increase. ICE is planning to conduct up to 15,000 I-9 audits per year moving forward. This is a huge expense for employers, as employers can face fines of more than $1,500 per I-9, including technical violations, such as writing “Pennsylvania” as the issuing authority for a driver’s license, instead of “PA DMV.” ICE has even fined employers if the employee left the space for “apartment number” blank, as opposed to writing “N/A.” While these seem like small issues, the cost can be substantial when scaled across hundreds or thousands of I-9 forms.