The Form I-9 Company

Introducing The Form I-9 Company

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by

David Adams
in

The Form I-9 Company : What We Offer

  1. With nearly 20 years of experience in developing and implementing 1-9 tools designed to streamline business compliance issues, our team consists of experts in the field. From assisting with the rollout of the first electronic I-9 / E-Verify product, to startup consulting with later well-regarded entrants to the world of electronic Form I-9 compliance, in the I-9 field, we’ve done it all. We’ve done speaking engagements as subject-matter experts at SHRM conventions, overall Form I-9 troubleshooting with business both large and small, designing and implementing one of the earliest networks of remote agents to solve the remote employee I-9 signatory dilemma, and full scale I-9 audits. We continue to stay ahead of the game by monitoring ICE worksite enforcements, recent or pending state mandates touching on compliance, and federal hints, guidance, updates and tentative new programs impacting employer compliance and liability.
  2. Since the genesis of the Form I-9 in 1987, and of Basic Pilot/E-Verify in the early 2000s,employers have needed to navigate a liability minefield and morass of sometimes ill-defined federal regulations, issued guidance and even retroactive redeterminations of the most basic rules for I-9 and E-Verify deadline dates, post hire. Regardless of ill definition, an employer is expected to complete and retain perfectly compliant Forms I-9 in the event it is chosen as a worksite enforcement audit target for ICE/USCIS/DOJ. 

Failing an audit can result in fines of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even, in egregious cases, jail time for guilty management. Even using an electronic I-9 compliance tool is no guarantee of I-9 compliance if it is not the right tool meeting all federal requirements specific to electronic Forms I-9 and to Form I-9 electronic signature. There have been federal audit cases where an employer has been deemed to have no I-9s at all because the electronic I-9 system used was not compliant with the federal laws governing specifically electronic I-9 signature requirements, and were fined millions of dollars for being ignorant of what they could hardly be expected to know.

Form I-9 compliance is an ever-changing exercise, a field where the goalposts have been known to move at times. In the last 12 months alone, USCIS has implemented and mandated a radically revised Form I-9, has (along with the DOJ) issued an alarming warning regarding non-compliant electronic I-9 systems, many of which are commonly used by employers, announced an extremely ill-defined new pilot program which they are calling Everify+, which raises more questions than it answers for employers, and finally, has completely revolutionized the requirements for an in-person meeting for document verification for the Form I-9.
Read the DOJ warning here: https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-12/joint_form_i-9_software_guidance_12_19_23.pdf


Since the outbreak of COVID in 2020, ICE worksite enforcement actions have mercifully diminished to nearly nothing; however, that will soon change as USCIS has stated in the Federal Register, regarding the I-9 rule change, that “DHS will monitor and evaluate data and information from ICE Form I–9 audits after the implementation of this alternative procedure to assess any measurable impacts to system integrity (such as error or fraud rates).”
Link to Federal Register announcement: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/07/25/2023-15533/optional-alternative-1-to-the-physical-document-examination-associated-with-employment-eligibility


That being said, The Form I-9 Company, a leader in background screening services for employers, is pleased to announce its rollout of a full battery of Form I-9 and E-Verify compliance services. 

  1. Electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify system. The Form I-9 Company offers its clients access to a best in industry electronic I-9 and E-Verify system with 22 years of customer satisfaction for its legal compliance, affordability and user ease. Our system will save your overworked HR Department  time and worry, whether you hire 5 people a year or 5,000 a month. For customers desiring it, the Federal Government’s E-Verify program integrates button-click seamlessly with the I-9 system, so that all of your I-9 associated records are located in one easily accessible system. 
  2. We offer in-house monitoring of your Form I-9 and E-Verify records to insure your compliance with those laws and regulations which an electronic tool cannot enforce, such as time-deadline compliance for Form I-9 and E-Verify and E-Verify photo match and TNC resolutions which require user interaction. 
  3. In-house monitoring of federal and state rule and law changes that could impact employer-client compliance. When anything changes or threatens to change in the wide world of hiring compliance, The Form I-9 Company alerts its clients who might be impacted, helping to put together a program to meet the challenges of any new rules and regulations. For example, in 2023, the State of Florida made E-Verify mandatory for those Florida companies with over 25 employees. That seems simple enough, but see here for the complexities involved: https://floridarevenue.com/taxes/Documents/eVerifyFAQs.pdf
  4. Free consultation: We offer employers of any size an initial free consultation to determine employer’s current Form I-9 systems and practices. This consultation considers potential risks and liabilities with those practices in order to recommend best practices and to determine whether it would be in the employer’s best interest to implement The Form I-9 Company’s Form I-9 tools and services. 
  5. In addition to the service offerings above, The Form I-9 Company can perform comprehensive or partial compliance audits of an employer’s existing Forms I-9 and (a) report to the employer on recommended remediations the employer can take toward full compliance, or (b) whenever possible handle the remediations in house. In the event of an ICE Form I-9 audit, awareness of noncompliance and a program put in place to remedy known noncompliance in the future often mitigates monetary penalties altogether, and so, a preemptive audit and remediation project is the best first step toward liability proofing your current Form I-9 library. 
  6. For those employers converting to The Form I-9 Company’s Form I-9 system, we also offer in house data entry and data conversion of your existing I-9s, paper or electronic, into our system. 

We would love to hear from you! For Questions about any of our HR Compliance Tools & Services, give us a call at 325.238.5866, or shoot us an email at info@formi9.net !