Feds crackdown on companies that hire illegal immigrants

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http://www.northjersey.com/news/immigration/101279199_Businesses_carry_burden_to_prove_workers_are_legal.htmlIn the past year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has charged 13 employers in New

Jersey with not properly guaranteeing their employees were authorized to work in the United States. The fines, totaling about $640,000 according to the ICE office in Newark, are about 14 times the amount levied last year, when the fines totaled less than $45,000.

The Obama administration is carrying out silent raids and targeting employers instead of employees to prevent businesses from hiring illegal immigrants. Strict civil penalties can be imposed on an employer who doesn't properly verify the status of its employees, said David Rich, an employment attorney based in New York and Englewood Cliffs.

Q: What is the obligation of the company to ensure the documents are legitimate?

It's a standard of reasonableness. The employer is not required to be a detective agency and to root out all evidence of possible fraud on identification documents. They're supposed to act like a reasonable person, but if a reasonable person would believe the documents are false, then they're supposed to reject them.

Q: What are the penalties if a company is caught hiring illegal immigrants?

The penalties for first offenses are civil fines of $375 to $3,200 for each unauthorized worker. Second offenses include fines of $3,200 to $6,500, and every offense after the second offense includes civil fines of $4,300 to $16,000. If an employer has engaged in apparent practice of knowingly hiring or continuing to employ unauthorized workers, then criminal penalties are pro-vided.

[EC]

1. A made for business deniablity...

Q: What is the obligation of the company to ensure the documents are legitimate?

It's a standard of reasonableness. The employer is not required to be a detective agency and to root out all evidence of possible fraud on identification documents. They're supposed to act like a reasonable person, but if a reasonable person would believe the documents are false, then they're supposed to reject them.

This is what these companies use as an out...of course the repubs made sure it was written as an out for businesses...