I-9 Enforcement Intensifies: What Employers Need to Fix Now

In this episode of the Immigration Insights Podcast, Greenberg Traurig attorneys Kate Kalmykov and Miriam Thompson discuss the significant shift in I-9 enforcement signaled by ICE's March 2025 guidance memo - and what it means for employers across all industries. The discussion opens with an explanation of the new guidance, which reclassifies numerous previously correctable, technical I-9 violations as substantive ones that trigger immediate fines. They walk through specific examples across each section of the Form I-9, explaining how errors that employers once assumed could be fixed during an audit may now result in penalties ranging from $288 to $2,861 per form - a figure that can grow rapidly for employers with large or multi-entity workforces. Kate and Miriam also address the concept of continuing violations and the five-year statute of limitations in the I-9 context, explaining why legacy errors on forms for current employees can remain actionable for years if left uncorrected. They talk about the heightened risks associated with electronic I-9 systems, the strict compliance obligations tied to remote document verification for E-Verify participants, and the government's increasingly expansive use of data from partner agencies to identify non-compliant employers. The episode concludes with practical guidance on how employers can get ahead of enforcement, including conducting proactive internal audits with counsel, implementing I-9 training programs and hiring handbooks, and developing a rapid response plan for when a Notice of Inspection arrives - noting that recent audits have seen ICE decline to grant the extensions that were more commonly available in the past.