Many employers don’t realize how vulnerable they are when their I-9 process isn’t done exactly right. This federal form confirms an employee is allowed to work in the U.S., and even small mistakes can trigger big penalties.
With increased ICE activity and more audits expected in 2026, issues like missed deadlines, incomplete forms, or inconsistent processes are drawing closer scrutiny. Most employers don’t realize there’s a problem until an audit notice arrives, and by then, there’s little room to fix it.
If you’re unsure about your I-9 process, you’ll want to watch this recorded webinar.
Hosted by Jeff Plakans, President of Commonwealth Payroll & HR, and featuring I-9 compliance expert Melissa Prentice of Clear I-9 by HRlogics, this webinar delivers clear, practical guidance from professionals who help employers avoid costly compliance mistakes every day.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- What you’re legally certifying when you complete Form I-9—and how Section 1, Section 2, re-verification, and E-Verify fit together
- When re-verification is required, how remote hiring changes the rules, and what DHS alternative procedures allow
- How ICE audits begin, the most common mistakes employers make, and how penalties are evaluated
- How to tell if your business is at risk—and how consistency and the right I-9 solution reduces errors and exposure
ICE doesn’t give warnings. Preparation is your protection.
Most I-9 mistakes aren’t intentional. They happen when forms are handled by multiple people, deadlines are missed, or paperwork isn’t tracked consistently. Those small gaps can quietly put your business at risk. Watch now to make sure your I-9 process is solid and your business is protected.
Guest Panelist: Melissa Prentice | President, Clear I-9 by HRlogics
Melissa Prentice is a recognized authority on Form I-9 compliance, bringing more than a decade of focused expertise in employment eligibility verification to organizations of all sizes. As the President of Clear I-9, she provides executive-level perspective on evolving I-9 regulations and enforcement trends.
This webinar was recorded live on February 10, 2026
Session Transcript:
Jeff Plakans:
Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining us during your lunch hour, or for some of you on the West Coast and in Western parts of the U.S., just before lunch hour, to our presentation today on I-9 compliance, asking the question I think a lot of employers ask themselves around the I-9 is, are you doing this right? And it’s a good question. There’s a lot more to it than I think a lot of people realize. Certainly the headlines recently have told us and told a lot of our employers that not only is this something that’s very timely and very worth working on and doing right now, but something that every employer needs to be examining for themselves. So first I want to introduce, of course, the folks who are going to be answering this question for you. First of all, myself. Some of you know me already. My name is Jeff Plakans. I’m the founder and president of Commonwealth Payroll & HR, the sponsor of this presentation. And we’re joined today by Melissa Prentice, the president of Clear I-9, but more importantly, a grizzled veteran of the I-9 and related tools industry. Melissa, thanks for joining us today. We very, very much appreciate it.
Melissa Prentice:
Happy to be here and looking forward to this.
Jeff Plakans:
Excellent. Now, a few things. Hate to call them housekeeping because that’s what you have to do on webinars, but there are two buttons here. There’s chat and there’s questions. Questions are if you’d like to ask us a question which we will address at the end of the presentation. Chat is just to say, “Hey. Yep. Nice to see you. I’m calling in from Alabama,” or whomever. Tell us hello, tell us you’re happy to be here through the chat. That’s fine. Ask us questions so we know where to go for them through the questions section of the webinar interface. So now, Melissa, let’s talk a little bit about I-9s and just dig right into it. So for employers, when do they need to start the process of the I-9 and what can we break it down for us? What do we in store for today?
Melissa Prentice:
Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So in today’s webinar, and really we like to call it a fireside chat. We want it to feel a little bit more relaxed. We understand that I-9 is a serious business, but we can have fun at it at the same time. And we’re going to take you through several components over the next hour. We’re going to talk about requirements and compliance around the I-9. We’re also going to talk about penalties and investigations as it pertains to I-9s and also who needs an I-9 software and why do you need an I-9 software? And as Jeff mentioned, we’re also going to allow for time to ask questions at the end of this, and then we’ll try to have those addressed either on today’s call or you’ll receive a separate follow-up with answers.
Jeff Plakans:
All right. Awesome. Well, let’s dig right into it. There’s lots to cover.
Melissa Prentice:
All right. So we’re going to go right into the form I-9s and compliance requirements, and let’s start with some basic rules around the I-9s. The concept of the I-9 was introduced November 6 of 1986, and anyone who is hired after that date must have an I-9 on file. Even if they aren’t in your employ today, that I-9 still has to remain on file. There are certain components to the I-9. And by the way, any employer in the U.S. who’s hiring an employee that’s on a W-2, you must have an I-9 for them, whether you hire one individual a year or 100,000. It does not matter to the federal government. You must have that I-9, again, for anyone hired after November 6 of 1986. Now, there are certain things and certain rules around the I-9s that you must understand. Number one, a big part of this is verifying the documents. Those documents or the documents that prove the work eligibility of that individual to be able to work in the United States.
Also, you have to verify those work authorization documents. You must complete and retain a copy of the I-9 again for anyone that you have in your employee. And there are also some rules you’re going to hear Jeff and I talk about, the three and one year rule or the one and three year rule. Depends on how you look at it, but you must maintain and retain those I-9s, again, just in the event that you are audited. Also, you must refrain, and I’m sure everyone knows this, but sometimes you can do this unintentionally, but you must refrain from discriminating against any individual based on any real or perceived national origin citizenship or immigration status. And again, we’ll cover some of that on the call on our discussion today.
Now, again, if we look at the basics of the I-9, in 2025, late last year, a new form was released and everyone should make sure and ensure that they are utilizing that new form. The date on it is 01/20/2025. And again, that is the form you should be using today. If you’re doing this on paper, please make sure that the version of the form that you’re utilizing is correct. If you’re using a system like ours, which we’ll talk about, of course, that’s our job to make sure that you are staying compliant with the version of the form. Again, I reiterate that anyone who’s in your employ of November 6 of 1986 must have an I-9 on file. If they’re still currently working, you still must maintain that particular I-9 and be able to produce it in the event that you are audited.
Also, lastly here as an employer, you are liable for the form. So whether you complete the forms or you delegate someone the authority to complete the form, just keep in mind that you will be responsible for any issues, any fines associated with that particular form, so it’s really important to know that. We’re going to talk about remote hiring. We’ll talk about utilizing agents to complete the forms. But again, as the employer, you’re always going to be the individual or the company that’s responsible for any issues pertaining to that form.
Jeff Plakans:
So Melissa, I know that a lot of employers have real problems, not with section one, because that’s what the employee does, but with section two of the I-9. So can you talk a little bit about the specifics, the timing around that, and what’s going to get some employers in hot water?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah, absolutely. And let’s go back to section one real quick. Yeah. According to the USCIS, section one of the I-9 should be completed on day one of the date of hire. Now, technically speaking, everyone will tell you that what’s really important is making sure section two is completed by the third day of hire. And I’m not going to tell you that it’s okay if you complete section one by day three, but I will tell you that generally speaking, that is what auditors are going to be looking for. So again, you have three days from the date of hire by which section two of the I-9 form must be completed. If you look at it, there’s also some confusion around this. If someone starts on Monday, you have until Thursday. Thursday is technically day three. This does not include weekends or holidays. So if someone starts on Thursday and the 4th of July happens to fall on Friday, then you really start counting for Monday, so the following Wednesday would be day three.
It’s a little confusing, but just remember to remove federal holidays and weekends in the count of those three days. But you only have three days by which the section two of the I-9 must be completed. And we’ll talk about what completed really means, but that also includes examining the documentation that the new hire is presenting. It also means dating and signing the form, and you would not believe how many times employers forget to either sign the form or they forget to date the form. It’s really critical that you examine all the documents presented, you sign and date the form by day three. Also, again, the dates are critically important. Do not put in, for example, a month and year or month and day. Make sure you are following the month, month, day, day, year-year-year rule that the USCIS has. Sounds really simple, but you would be amazed that you can really be fined if any of that is incorrect.
Now for section two review, and this is really important. And again, to Jeff’s point, this is where a lot of issues sometimes will come in. Again, we’ll talk about using agents. We’ll get into all of that. But one thing that’s really important to note is that you must accept a document presented by the employee if it reasonably appears to be genuine and relates to the person who is presenting it. Now, what does that mean? That means if you look at a document and it’s an obvious fake document, you cannot accept it. If the document appears to be reasonable from the average person, they see it as a document that looks legitimate, then you have to accept that document if it meets the requirements based on the citizenship status of that new hire. The document must also be an original. You cannot review a copy of a document and accept it for completion of the I-9 form. It must be the original document itself.
The only exception to that is for a certified copy of a birth certificate. Otherwise, you must have the original. Also, when you are accepting the documents that are being presented, make sure that they correlate to the citizenship status of the new hire. Again, if you’re utilizing a software platform, a compliant I-9 tool, the system will take care of that for you. If you’re not, it’s really important to make sure the document you’re accepting does match the citizenship status. And again, simple rule. You must accept either a list A document or a list B and a list C. So not all three, which we’ll talk about. Not two list Bs or two list Cs, but a B with a C is required or a list A. And again, we’ll get into some more details around that.
Jeff Plakans:
So Melissa, what’s the INA, we hear that a little bit, and what exactly does it cover?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. It’s something that everyone really should become very familiar with. The INA is the Immigration and Nationality Act, and it prohibits four different types of discrimination. And again, it’s really important to stress that when you see the word discrimination, it doesn’t mean you’re intentionally discriminating, but sometimes maybe it’s unintentional, but the government looks at it almost the same, so you must be really, really careful with that. First, the first form of discrimination according to the INA is based on someone’s status. You cannot discriminate against someone based on their status. Now, what does that mean? It means that if someone’s a U.S. citizen, you can’t discriminate against them. Most times that’s not really the issue. But again, if someone’s, let’s say, a lawful, permanent resident, you cannot discriminate against someone and choose not to onboard or hire them because they’re a lawful permanent resident. A great example there.
For example, refusing to hire someone who’s a green card holder and say, “We only hire U.S. citizens,” that is against the INA Act. You cannot discriminate based on that. Also, you cannot discriminate based on someone’s national origin. Again, whether it’s actual or perceived. What does that mean? You cannot discriminate on someone because they have an accent. You cannot discriminate on someone based on their country of birth. If they’re eligible to work in the U.S. Or ethnicity or ancestry, another good examples, you cannot discriminate based on that. For example, you cannot reject a candidate and say, “Well, you don’t really seem American enough.” Right? That’s an obvious discrimination. You cannot do that.
The other category is discriminating based on documents that are being provided. Kind of going back to the example with the green card. You also cannot ask for a specific document. For example, if someone comes in, they said they’re an alien authorized to work, they present the documentation proving that, you cannot say, “Well, in addition to that, can you provide me a driver’s license,” et cetera. You cannot do that. That’s discriminating based on documents. Also, very importantly, you cannot retaliate against an employee again. Most of us know this, but sometimes again, a little bit unintentional, but you cannot retaliate against an employee based on any rights that they might have. For example, taking some adverse action against someone because they feel maybe discriminated against and they say, “I’m going to report you to E-Verify.” You cannot retaliate against that individual. And again, very, very importantly that if you are not familiar with this act, that you do become familiar with it so that you’re not knowingly or unknowingly discriminating against any new hire that you might be onboarding. Hopefully that helps, Jeff.
Jeff Plakans:
Thank you. So Melissa, we have a lot of clients who have employees that are on temporary visas here in the United States, and we hear the term receipts thrown around quite a bit, but sometimes when I mention that to employers, they don’t know what I’m referring to. Can you tell everybody a little bit about what that is and what that means?
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely. This is another area where we see there’s a lot of misunderstandings. And again, you want to be very careful with this. You can accept receipts for documents that are lost, damaged, or stolen. So for example, if I’m onboarding and I plan on bringing in my driver’s license and maybe my social security card to you, but I lost my driver’s license or maybe my wallet was stolen and I have a receipt for that driver’s license, I can absolutely be onboarded with that. There’s one caveat which I’ll get to momentarily, but here’s the thing about receipts. Number one, when you accept a receipt, you must mark it as a receipt on your I-9. Again, if you’re using electronic systems, it’s usually a checkbox for the receipt, and I’ll tell you why that’s critically important in just a minute. So you may accept those receipts showing the employee has applied to replace some particular document.
Now, what’s important is that the receipt that the new hire is providing you must have been issued by the particular agency that the document will be owned by. For example, I’m in Georgia. If I were to bring you a receipt for a driver’s license, it must be a receipt that comes from the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles. So it sounds very common sense, but it’s really important to make sure that you are accepting receipts from the original organization or company that is issuing the actual document. Also, and again, this is where I think a lot of fines come in. It’s very important to know that when you accept the receipt within 90 days, you must do a reverification of the original document for which the receipt was presented. Going back to my example, if I brought in a receipt for a driver’s license, within 90 days I have to show you the actual driver’s license. And as the employer, you are responsible to remember to prompt me as a new hire to show that and document that on the I-9.
One caveat that I mentioned is you cannot accept a receipt for anyone who will be employed for three days or less. You cannot do that. So that’s the only caveat to that, otherwise you must accept it. Also, I might mention that once you receive or accept a receipt, it will delay your E-Verify, which is completely permissible, but you cannot submit E-Verify information on a candidate by which a receipt was presented. If you are using an electronic I-9 system that’s compliant, it will prohibit pushing the I-9 to E-Verify based on the fact that you marked it as a receipt. So hopefully that’s really helpful information. There are a lot of confusing confusion around receipts, so it’s helpful to understand all the processes involved there. Hopefully that helps, Jeff.
Jeff Plakans:
It does. It certainly does, Melissa. We mentioned copies of documents, and I know that getting copies of documents is something that we see employers doing quite a bit of, but really should an employer copy documents for retention or are there cases when that’s not necessary?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah. So copying documents, this is another area and it’s important, and I don’t think I’ve used the word yet, but it’s important to make sure you are consistent in this. So as an employer, in some ways you can make decisions and you can build your internal rules around this. But again, whatever you do, make sure you are consistent. Here’s some basic rules. If you are not an E-Verify employer, you can choose to keep copies of everything or you can choose to keep copies of nothing. You can just say, “We do not maintain copies of IDs and other documents presented,” If you are not using E-Verify. If you are an E-Verify employer, you must maintain the list A documents that are presented by the new hire. It’s a requirement of E-Verify, but you don’t have to maintain other copies of other documents.
Now, the key there is to be consistent. So if you are an E-Verify employer, again, you can maintain the required documents on list A, or you can say, “We keep documents of all of the identification presented.” And I will tell you that in my experience, I find that probably 98% of employers, they choose to keep copies of all the documents that are presented. One of the reasons for that is that if there is an issue with the I-9 later, you still have the copy of the document. You can go back, you can look it up, you can make corrections versus having to start over the process with a new hire. But again, it’s really important to whatever you choose to do that you are very consistent with it. Again, on this slide, we do list the three documents that are required for E-Verify, but again, most employers choose to keep copies of all the documents. We’ll talk about whether you want front and back and whether it’s necessary on a later slide.
Jeff Plakans:
So you mentioned a little earlier reverifications. Now, I know that there’s some employers that are sitting here and they’re hearing that word for the first time, or they’re now starting to think about that and go, “Whoa, wait a minute. I don’t know about that. ” Can you tell us a little bit about reverifications and tell us what most employers don’t know? And so employers pay attention because this is really important.
Melissa Prentice:
Very, very, very important. Most of what we’ve covered today, again, is critical with managing the I-9 forms, and this is probably one of the most important. If you look at TV right now, when you see what’s going on in the U.S., again, this kind of plays right into some of that. As it pertains to reverification, employees must reverify a new hire using the I-9 Supplement B. It used to be called the Section three form. Also, you can reverify… And by the way, reverification simply means that you have verified the new hire at some point when they onboarded and based on factors that’s occurred, which we’ll talk about, there might be a reverification that is needed. We’ll talk to you about specifically when you need that on the upcoming slide, but you also can reverify someone within three years of the date of hire.
So let’s say that your policy, again, I’m going to use the word consistent, make sure you’re consistent with this rule. But if your policy is that if you onboard someone, they leave your employment and they return before the form is purged, so within those three years of the date of hire, you can choose to reverify them. Just make sure you are consistent. For example, you don’t want to do a reverification only for anyone who is a lawful permanent resident, but for a U.S. citizen, you’re not going to reverify. You want to be very, very [inaudible 00:21:37]. And again, we’ll talk about some of the rules. But you should not create any verified case when you are reverifying, meaning if you brought someone on board, they went through E-Verify, as a result of reverifying, you do not put the I-9 back through the E-Verify process.
Now, let’s talk about those documents that you must reverify, and again, this is critically important. You must reverify expired permanent resident cards presented with a Form I-797. Those have to be reverified based on the expiration dates. Also, you must reverify the Form I-94 with a temporary I-551 stamp on the audit. Again, make sure you are reverifying those. You must also reverify foreign passports with the temporary stamp, the I-551 temporary stamp, as well as the EAD cards with the Form I-766 with an expiration date attached to it. If you are utilizing, and I keep saying this, I know, but it’s really so helpful. If you are utilizing compliant I-9 systems, we will remind you of that. Not only are we going to remind you of that, we’ll remind the new hire that the reverification date is coming up. We typically start notifying you six months out, as well as the new hire until such time that the ID is expired.
You do not want to have someone in your employ with a document that should have been reverified that has not been reverified. But as important as it is to know when to reverify, it’s also important to know when you should not reverify. And again, this is critically important. Do not reverify U.S. citizens and non-citizen nationals. Do not reverify anyone who presents a U.S. passport or passport card. There’s never any reason or excuse for doing so, and do not reverify anyone who’s a permanent resident and presented an unexpired permanent resident or alien registration receipt card. So those individuals, you do not reverify. So again, knowing when to reverify is important. You do not want to have someone working with you whose authorization has expired, and you certainly don’t want to reverify someone who should not be reverified. So hopefully that information’s helpful. You’ll have the slide, so if you forget, it’s okay.
Jeff Plakans:
Yeah. And actually, this is a good time to note for folks that if you’re on the call and watching the webinar, and even if you’ve registered for the webinar but couldn’t make the call or came in late, we will be ultimately sharing a recording of this webinar so you have access to it and we’ll be able to re-watch it as your hearts desire. Now, Melissa, you’re starting to get into the good stuff. Certainly part of the good stuff meant a big change occurred for a lot of employers in early 2020 and thereafter, and that is remote work and remote employees and remote hiring. So obviously these days, most employers that are doing remote hiring, some of them may not actually even meet their employees in person. So when it comes to I-9, what do we need to be thinking about there?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah, this has always been one of the most fascinating points of what I’ve done and what I do. Remote hiring has become a little bit easier. They’ve been a little bit easier from when I started 14 years ago. So we’re going to talk about remote hiring. We’re going to talk about the remote hiring with the new DHS alternative procedure. Federal government makes everything very complicated. It simply means you’re conducting a virtual review. First, as many of us know, the remote workforce continues to grow. Personally, I’ve been remote now for about 25 years. I live in Atlanta, but I’ve intentionally not had employers in Atlanta because I like working from home, but it has become a very common day, not like it was 25 years ago. So 72% of the workforce offers some sort of remote work. I’m going to walk through with you some of the policies as it pertains to remote hiring, but you’ll notice a consistent pattern.
Basically, whether you’re hiring remotely or this person’s face-to-face, these rules apply. It really doesn’t vary much. Section two must still be completed within the first three days of hire, whether they’re remote or in person. The person who is completing section two and examining the documents has to examine the documents and the work authorization information in order to complete section two. Also, the form must still be retained for three years from date of hire or one year from date of termination, whichever date is the latest. And all the forms and supporting documents may need to be available if you are inspected. We talked about copying, keeping copies of the forms. We say copies. Now you’re taking pictures, but you’re still maintaining copies, so that still is in place. And again, the person who examines the forms must be physically present with the new hire, or we’ll talk about the virtual option momentarily. You can now conduct the review virtually as well. But again, these rules, whether they are in person or whether they’re remote, most of these rules are pretty much identical.
Jeff Plakans:
So Melissa, the-
Melissa Prentice:
Now-
Jeff Plakans:
Go ahead.
Melissa Prentice:
No, go ahead.
Jeff Plakans:
Well, I was just going to ask you a question, and the question was, you get to this section two again, and section two we see as a consistent problem, but now I think becomes an even more consistent problem for employers that are trying to hire remote employees. What options do they have?
Melissa Prentice:
That’s a great question. Again, another question we get quite often. There’s so much out there, and quite frankly, so much misinformation around this, and we’ll talk about this. But as the employer, I mentioned this earlier on, you are liable for that form, whether you are completing it or whether you are allowing someone else to act on your behalf to complete the I-9 form. It does not matter how you do it. I’ve heard a lot of individuals use the friends and family. We choose to call it the employee chosen agents. It simply means that as the employer, you are allowing the employees to choose someone to complete the form. It may be a family member, a neighbor. It might be someone they have a professional relationship with, and that’s perfectly fine. The employees can choose their own agents. Also, as an employer, you can identify an agent.
We see this used a lot in certain industries. Let’s use higher education. If you are hiring someone in New York that they live in Georgia, you can have the new hire go to a school in Georgia that you have an agreement with to complete the I-9 on your behalf. So you can certainly utilize agents. You can also build your own agent network. If you have a group that is willing to complete the forms on your behalf, you can do that. So the bottom line here is that as the employer, you have a lot of options. You can complete the forms. You can have your new hire find someone to complete the forms on your behalf. You can assign someone outside of your organization, whether it’s an agent network, et cetera, to complete the forms. Very importantly, again, as a reminder, you’re ultimately responsible for that form, but again, use any of these options that you choose as long as you’re being consistent, as long as you’re not discriminating based on any status of the new hire. All of these options are certainly available to you.
Jeff Plakans:
So on the tail end of COVID, coming out of COVID, Melissa, I’ve heard this term, DHS alternative procedure, getting thrown around by employers a lot saying, “Oh, I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to do that. ” Much of which contradicts what we just heard now. Help our audience a little bit with this alternative procedure, what it is, what it’s not.
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So let’s go back just a little bit. Prior to COVID, the rule was the person completing the form must be face-to-face with the new hire to complete the form. That was a hard and steadfast rule. Whether the employee was finding their own agent, family member, friends, neighbors, et cetera, whether the employer was meeting with them to complete the form, whether the employer was assigning them to a network of notaries or some other network, the face-to-face was required prior to COVID. As we all know, during COVID, we were not face-to-face with many people, so as a result, they relaxed the rules around completing the forms, they as in the USCIS. And they said, “Okay, you can now do webcams or Zoom meetings or you can have them email or fax their IDs to you.” Certainly when the government put that rule out, they expected it to last maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or two. It lasted three years.
So what they did was at the end, when they ended the COVID exemption period, the government came back and said, “We’re going back to face-to-face.” And this was in May of 2023. Employers across the U.S. and attorneys basically revolted and said, “Why? Why are we going back to that? This has worked fine,” and they pushed back, and within two weeks, the fastest I think I’ve ever seen the federal government work, within two weeks they came back and said, “Okay, we’ll make some concessions.” What they did was they now allow employers to complete the I-9s virtually via a… Let’s go here. Via a Zoom meeting or web meeting of some sort where the new hire is on camera with you. Now, again, it’s the federal government. They make it complicated. They call it the DHS alternative procedure. It simply means that you are completing the I-9 virtually. That’s literally all it means. Virtually via some means where you can see the new hire on camera and you can verify their documents.
Now, let’s talk about some of the rules around it. There are some specific rules, and of course, it was an opportunity for the federal government to push you a little bit closer to utilizing E-Verify, so that’s one of the first rules. You must be in good standing with E-Verify in order to complete the I-9s virtually. We’ve had calls from employers who will say, “Well, we don’t want to use E-Verify, but we want to do virtual reviews.” You cannot. You must be enrolled in E-Verify and you must be in good standing. Also, you must examine both the front and the back of the documents. So before, I was just keeping copies of front of documents, except some list A documents. Now, it is front and back of pretty much every document that is being presented to you.
You must conduct a live video meeting. So they have to be on camera with you at the time of completing the form, just as if they were in person. Also, very important is that they must submit copies of the documents to you before you are able to complete the I-9. So you cannot get on video, have them show the document, fill it out, complete the I-9 and sign off, and then maybe send you the forms three days later. Those forms must be in your possession before you complete the live video meeting, and you must also indicate on the form that the meeting was live using the virtual option. So these are the rules. And if you are going to use this, please, please, please make sure you’re following these very specific rules because we can all but guarantee you that if you’re audited, this is going to be a big area where they are looking.
I might also quickly add that if you hired anyone during the COVID exception period and you did not follow the rules properly or you did faxing and emails, et cetera, you must do a reverification on that. That’s a whole different webinar. So if you did do that, please let us know and we can have a one-off conversation with you in terms of how to bring your forms into compliance. So hopefully, Jeff, that’s helpful. I know it’s a lot of information in a short period of time.
Jeff Plakans:
So we’ve already covered 18 slides worth. I’m betting that if we polled the audience at this point, that they would be like, “Wow, that’s a lot of information.” And we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff. So what we’re going to cover now guys is the downside to all this. So the what if we don’t follow the rules or what if we realize that for some period of time we haven’t been able to follow the rules, then what happens? So Melissa, for those who don’t take the I-9 process seriously, tell our employers what they’ve won if they get audited by the USCIS.
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is where it becomes really the rubber hits the road, right? This is why most of you are probably on this call today. I’m sure almost everyone, if not everyone on the call, wants to just do things the right way, but ultimately you want to avoid fines that might be assessed doing an audit. In terms of the I-9 fines, they are pretty hefty and they add up very, very quickly. I will start with administrative violations, and what are those? Administrative violations are just that. It can be just something of just an error made administratively. Forgetting to sign the form, not dating the form, not dating the form with the year, allowing an employee to input the current year as their birth year, skipping over required fields. Those are administrative violations. They were increased last year from, I think, $271 per form to $288 per form in 2025, and that’s the minimum penalty.
The maximum for administrative violation has increased to $2861, $2,861. And again, that is per form. So if you have 10 forms and this auditor really wants to fine you as much as they can, you can see how quickly that adds up. That’s on the administrative side, but the fines are more hefty as we look at recruiting, referring, and rehiring violations, and that is really rehiring someone who’s unauthorized to work, recruiting someone that you know is unauthorized to work, et cetera. The fines there, as you can see, I’m not going to read them off, but they are pretty hefty. For the first defense, $5,724 is as much as they’ll go all the way to the third offense, and you can see again, it’s now up to $28,619, and that is for one offense if it’s your third. So it’s really important to keep this in the back of your head when you’re looking at any costs associated with the I-9 process, I-9 systems, et cetera. This is what you want to look at and you can see how it greatly is offset by these penalties.
Now, how do the penalties add up? We get that all the time. Do you know how it adds up? Because sometimes you’ll see where a particular organization was charged $1.5 million in fines and everyone wants to know where’s it come from? How does that add up? It comes from several factors. Missing documents. Remember what I said at the start of this you must have an I-9 form on file for every single new hire that you hired after November 6 of 1986. If you were missed, and of course they hadn’t met the purging rules, so they’re still employed or they have not met the rules where they can be purged, you must have the I-9s. If it is missing, that’s going to be a problem for an auditor. Failure to complete section two, the certification around that, again, a big issue. You must make sure that you are completing section two exactly as you should.
Unknowingly hiring unauthorized workers, that’s an obvious big one, as well as some of the discriminatory practices we touched on earlier. You want to certainly avoid that. Failure to reverify. I think we’ve beat the horse on that quite a bit already, but you want to make sure that you are reverifying everyone who should be reverifying, and of course, not verifying anyone who should not. Dating and signing the form, please make sure you date and sign the forms if you’re using paper. We’ve seen it way too often. Seems like a simple, easy miss, but it does happen. Engaging in any sort of document fraud. For example, if you’re onboarding someone, the ID shows that it’s expired, but you put a date on there showing it’s not expired or accepting a document that you know is obviously fraud. That’s going to really add up your penalties.
And of course, omitting information. Something as simple as receiving a driver’s license, not indicating it’s from the DMV of New York. That’s an omission. Not inputting the correct document numbers or omitting that all together. Again, these will add up for your penalties. So you want to be very careful with this simple one-page form that can create so much stress. You want to look at all of this in terms of how those penalties will add up.
Now, how are they evaluated? Not going to spend a lot of time on this. This one’s pretty straightforward. It is based on the size of the business, whether you’re hiring 10 or 10,000 hires. The rules and what the expectations are will vary. They will also look at any previous violations you’ve had. Let’s say you were audited a year ago, two years ago, and they come back and they’re finding the exact same types of violations you had previously. They will take that into account when they are assessing penalties. Unauthorized workers, goes without saying you cannot do that. Also, the seriousness of the violation, right? If you’re hiring unknowingly or knowingly someone who shouldn’t be working, you are referring or bringing someone back on that you know should have been reverified and they can’t be reverified, et cetera. All that’s taken into account.
But I like to stop on good faith effort to comply. You want to make sure that you’re showing the auditor that you have made every effort to comply with the USCIS rules and regulations. We all make mistakes. They understand that they’re human just as we are. So make sure you’re putting that good faith effort to comply at the forefront of everything you’re doing as it pertains to I-9s. So hopefully that gives you some sense in terms of penalties and fines and what you should be concerned with, what we should be looking at.
Jeff Plakans:
So Melissa, when I hear you talk about these things, I think about scenarios that we’ve seen and heard where employers know that they’re being fooled or there’s an attempt at fooling them by potential employees and they kind of look the other way. I think what I’m hearing here is that’s not going to fly in the face of an audit. So now you’ve got me kind of really, really scared. How can all this go wrong?
Melissa Prentice:
Well, we get this quite a lot as well. Am I at risk for an audit? Obviously we all are. I was reading an article recently, and I think I know when the Trump administration was in office in the first term, they immediately said we’re going to increase audits by 400%. This time around, they haven’t given a number. They just said exponentially. I think they used a word similar to that, so we can expect a lot more audits. Many experts in the industry now, they’re estimating between 12,000 to 15,000 audits per year. Keep in mind, you can be audited as an extension of the business. For example, if you’re a staffing company, you’re sending individuals to a particular customer, they’re audited. There’s a big risk that you’ll also be pulled into that audit. But again, the integrity of the I-9 records is just as critical as your tax records.
So just like you document your tax records, you keep them organized, you follow the rules and regulations. Same thing with the I-9s. Also, keep in mind that if you receive an NOI, which is a notice of inspection, you have three days to be ready and prepared for that audit. Once you’ve received the notification, you cannot destroy documents, attachments, et cetera, so it’s important to keep your I-9s and the files very clean on an ongoing basis so that when you do receive that audit, you’re not overreacting. Also, if you see a serious issue, we always recommend that immediately you hire an immigration attorney to help you to address any issues that you know will become potential issues during that audit. So these are things, yes, we’re all at risk. If you follow the rules that are on here and you read through this, I think you’ll be protecting yourself much more than not doing any of this.
Jeff Plakans:
So I think I’m not alone, but I think a lot of our employers start to think as they start looking at this about not just what am I doing today, but what they’ve done over the years. So can we talk about record retention and what we do over the years?
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely. There’s some specific pitfalls when it comes to the I-9s that you want to look at. Some of this we’ve already touched on. Having I-9s with incorrect information, missing signatures, dates, checkboxes that should have been checked that you simply missed. We see that a lot, believe it or not, for something like the citizenship status. Sometimes on paper, they just skip right over it. That’s a big issue. Missing I-9s altogether is the big problems, not reviewing the original forms and looking at copies. Again, that’s one of the pitfalls you have to be careful with. Have your forms been reverified? Also, are you purging your I-9s based on the one and three year rule or three and one year rule, which we’ll talk about? And are you keeping the copies that are required by E-Verify for the identification if they do so want to see that information? And so these are some pitfalls that everyone really should be very cognizant of and making sure that you are not falling victim to this.
Jeff Plakans:
Okay.
Melissa Prentice:
All right.
Jeff Plakans:
What’s the one and three year rule, Melissa?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah. That’s a simple rule that can be a little complicated. It is three years from the date of hire and one year from the date of termination. So I mentioned purging the I-9s. You want to keep your I-9 records clean and the government gives you the ability to do so. What they essentially say is that three years, you must maintain the form for three years from the date that someone was hired, and you must maintain that form as long as they’re active in your employee, but after they terminate, one year after that termination date, you can destroy the form. Now, it can be a little complex. So let me give you some specific examples. If you were to onboard someone on 01/01 of 2020, you must maintain the form until for at least three years. So at least until 01, I guess, 12/39 of 2023, you must maintain and hold onto that form. One year after the individual leaves, and again, as long as you’ve met that three year from hire date rule, you can then destroy the form.
So another simple example is if someone starts today and they resign today, I have to hold onto that form for at least three years and one day. Okay? So again, three years from date that they were hired, one year from the date they were terminated. If you’re using compliant I-9 software, all we need is the date of termination. We’ll take care of the rest of it for you. If you’re doing it on paper, just make sure that you’re not purging forms you should have and that you’re not holding onto forms that you do not have to hold onto. Hopefully that’s helpful.
Jeff Plakans:
That is definitely helpful. We’ve got some questions piling up, but we’re not going to get to them just yet. Melissa, you mentioned a verified I-9 solution. Why would somebody need something like that, perhaps an electronic solution?
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah. So that’s really important. It’s a great question. There are systems on the market. There are I-9 systems out there that are not compliant I-9 tools. They are essentially maybe a PDF filler. You can go online and any college kid with a couple of computer classes can go on there and they can create that online. An I-9 compliance system really protects you against all the things we’ve talked about on this call. It follows the rules and the regulations of USCIS, DHS and ICE, and ensuring that you are protected in the event of an audit. For example, some straightforward things are if it makes sure to remind you that you have those three days to onboard the new hire. Additionally, it makes sure it helps you to send reminders and alerts are sent out in the event that you need a reverification or a followup for receipts, et cetera, the system will remind you of that as well.
So following the rules and regulations of the USCIS is a key part of the I-9, compliant I-9 system. Also, make sure that any company that you’re engaging with around I-9 compliance software, that they offer audit support in the event that you’re audited. Ensuring that the I-9 tool has an audit trail is also critically important, and tracking the expirations of documents and some of the other audit triggers we’ve talked about. All of that has to be a part of that I-9 compliance tool as well.
Jeff Plakans:
All right. So Melissa, I want to tell you, you’ve fallen off. Your camera I think has either turned off accidentally. We can’t see you. We can hear you, but we can’t see you. Just a heads up on that. But I think that leads me, thank you for that, to the discussion about an introduction of our new solution that we are offering to our clients here at Commonwealth called Certify I-9. Now, Melissa’s going to talk a little bit about it, but this is something we’ve developed in combination with Clear I-9, Melissa’s company, and a more end-to-end I-9 handling and storage solution that’s going to keep the guesswork out of all of this process and the consistency and compliance in. That’s very, very critical. So Melissa, can you tell us a little bit about Certify I-9?
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely. Yeah, and I just see my camera’s turned off for some reason. I can’t get it back on. So I guess you’ll have to suffice with just hearing me talk for the next couple of minutes. Yeah. There were several benefits to Certify I-9 and much of it I’ve covered, but I’ll just reiterate. First, it’s all about compliance. It’s ensuring that as the employer, you are compliant with all the rules of the federal form I-9s, all the rules and all the regulations that have been put out by USCIS, really DHS and ICE is a part of that as well. Certified I-9 is also going to help you with ensuring that all the information is being completed accurately. Whether we’re looking at section one of the I-9 where the new hire is completing that information.
Whether we’re talking about all the things we’ve discussed in section two, did you enter the document number? Did you enter the issue of authority? Is the document number correct in terms of the formatting, et cetera? So the accuracy of the data is going to be enforced using Certified I-9. Also, we talked about the timeliness. You have three days to complete the I-9, and utilizing Certified I-9, we will help you to make sure you’re meeting that three day deadline. Notifications are sent to you as well as to the new hire to ensure that that form is completed within those three days. There’s also error checking for obvious errors with Comply I-9. For example, if someone inputs the, let’s say, social security number and they’re short by one or two digits, we will catch that. We’ll notify them. If you input your birth year as the current year, we’ll catch that. So the system will catch errors that an individual reading the I-9 may not recognize.
Also, I mentioned, I’ve used the word consistent a few times, and I’ll say it here again. You can build in your specific policies as long as it falls or rules and regulations of the USCIS. And what happens is that Certified I-9 will ensure that you are consistent throughout the organization. For example, if your policy is that you keep front and back of all documents, we’ll make sure every I-9 that’s in there has the front and back. If your policy is that we do not keep any copies of any documents, we’ll ensure that no one’s keeping copies of any documents and so on. So you will be consistent in your practices, and again, not raising the eyebrow of an auditor. So these are just the start of some of the benefits with Certify I-9. Remember, it’s here to protect you in the event that you are audited.
Jeff Plakans:
Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate that, Melissa. So for those of you who are current clients of ours, we want to be… Well, tell us a little more actually, Melissa.
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah. So again, a lot of what I’ve said goes here, also can be said here. One thing that’s really important is that not all I-9 tools are created equal. I like to say that because, again, there’s compliance and then there’s true compliance. Certify I-9 will give you that peace of mind. In utilizing the software, the only thing you’ll have to do is tell the system who needs an I-9. All the reminders are there, all the follow-ups are there, all the prompts are there to process through. Also, and I don’t think I mentioned this, but it’s critically important to mention this as well. For everyone who is utilizing E-Verify, the bi-directional integration with E-Verify is there. Keep in mind that the error rate on I-9 is not using a compliant tool is around 80%. We talked about the fines that are associated. If you add those up, you’ll see how quickly those numbers can rise.
And also, we’ve taken a one-page I-9 form with 18 pages of instructions, and we’ve really provided you with an I-9 tool. I love to call it I-9 for dummies. It just makes it clear. It makes it very easy for you. So again, it simply gives you that peace of mind.
Jeff Plakans:
Awesome. Thank you. So now, as I mentioned, for our existing clients or potentially for our new clients, this is not available today. We are aiming for the sort of end of Q1, so probably mid to late March to early April, that this is going to be ready to go. It is going to be fully integrated with our solutions utilizing iSolved. So if you’re interested in learning more about Certify I-9, potentially deploying it for the use in your organization, we encourage you to go ahead and scan this QR code. If you complete the form that it will take you to by February 24 and you utilize the Prentice210 promo code, that’s going to qualify you. We’re going to hold a 15% discount for you and your organization on the pricing. Now we have not finalized the pricing for Certified I-9 just yet. That’s part of what we’re working on, but we’ll be notifying and promoting this a little bit as we get a little bit closer to that.
However, if you filled out this form and you’re on the wait list from attending this webinar, you’re going to be eligible for that discount and obviously we’ll know the first folks that want to go to, that we want to go to and talk to about putting it in place. And again, that’ll be part of the sort of, I guess we’ll call it the early bird discount. Now, we’ve got a lot of questions. I know that some of these questions that are in there, we have already answered in part of the presentation, but Melissa, with your permission, I’d love to leave this slide up, but get into some of the questions and see if we can get them all done in the little bit of time that we have left.
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely.
Jeff Plakans:
All right. So the first question, how should we handle the almost daily changes to TPS statuses for employees?
Melissa Prentice:
That’s a big one. That’s a big one. I will say, I can tell you that from the standpoint of utilizing Certified I-9, the process there is that we will… Our job, of course, is to stay abreast of that, what those changes are. We do update our system with that information, and then there’s a report that’s run and every person utilizing or having someone with that particular status is notified in terms of when the status period is going to end. I’m not sure honestly how it’s handled on paper except to sign up with E-Verify and get those notices there and then manually track it. But again, if you are using Certify I-9, we will handle that for you. We will track it. We’ll update you if anyone meets that particular status and notify you as to when the last date is that they’ll be able and eligible to work.
Jeff Plakans:
Okay. Are electronic signatures acceptable from the employee and/or the employer? I think we covered this, but-
Melissa Prentice:
Absolutely. I’m sorry, the last part?
Jeff Plakans:
No, go ahead.
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah, absolutely. So there is a CFR from E-Verify where they actually provide electronic software vendors, the rules around electronic signatures. We can send that out to you. But yeah, it’s absolutely acceptable and compliant. In Certified I-9, there are actually two signature types available. There is a click to sign, which basically they click on a button and it generates their name in cursive, so that’s certainly compliant, as well as utilizing the mouse to sign or finger to sign if they are utilizing a mobile device. Certified I-9 is mobile friendly as well for uploading photos, et cetera, and for signing using their finger. So absolutely, this is the way that it’s been done for a number of years, certainly before I came into the industry, as long as the provider is following the CFR from E-Verify as it pertains to signature, which of course we do.
Jeff Plakans:
So this question came up. I just started using E-Verify. How do I know if I need to reverify anyone from, hang on a second, from before we use E-Verify?
Melissa Prentice:
Nope. When you start using E-Verify, you E-Verify anyone that starts when you started or moving forward. You never go back. You are not allowed to go back. So if you have been hiring individuals for the last six months or six years and you started using E-Verify January one of 2026, you would only E-Verify anyone that was onboarded on or after January one of 2026. Never go back and never E-Verify someone more than once.
Jeff Plakans:
Now, there was a similar question by somebody who had stepped into their role, realized there were no I-9s for anybody, started using E-Verify, but needed to know what catch-up work needed to be done just to get everything up to snuff.
Melissa Prentice:
Yeah. And I’ll quickly answer that. I know we’re right at time, but I will quickly answer that by saying, again, you cannot go back and E-Verify because they’re already employed. However, you must still complete an I-9 form now, input the actual date of hire, indicate, of course, that you are only now completing the I-9. Remember the good faith to comply rule that I talked about? That is a good faith effort. So anyone who is missing an I-9 that you’ve identified as a missing individual where the I-9 was not completed, still complete the I-9 now. Indicate on the I-9 form that the form is late and it was identified as a part of the audit, but you cannot go back to E-Verify them.
Jeff Plakans:
And lastly, what sort of situations might increase the likelihood of an audit? And is this a random process? I know you spoke a little bit about that.
Melissa Prentice:
It can be random, but it cannot be random at the same time. Sometimes we’ve seen where they start going after certain industries, for example. So that’s not random, that’s a specific target on a specific industry. Sometimes they’ll target a particular part of the country. So that’s not really random, that’s really targeting a particular part of the country. So there’s no real rule around it. I think, honestly, it just depends. It can also be triggered by complaints from new hires that might be sent to E-Verify regarding discriminatory practices. So it truly is not random per se, but it truly can happen without any real rhyme or reason. And I’ll lastly add that I mentioned this earlier. Sometimes you may be audited as an extension of another company that’s being audited. So let’s say that you supply new hires to a construction site and the construction company’s being audited as an extension of that, you may also be audited. So there’s just no real telling if or when we’ll be audited as employers.
Jeff Plakans:
All right. So we’re going to ask one last question for you, Melissa. Thank you so much for the time you’ve given us. How do we show we had a meeting via Zoom for completing the I-9 remotely?
Melissa Prentice:
In the additional information box on the I-9, you’d have to put that information in there, indicate that you used the DHS alternative procedure, indicate the date that you met with the new hire and completed that process. If you are using Certify I-9, it automatically stamps it. There’s a checkbox in the software and it’s automatically updated in the software. But please remember if you are doing this remotely, that you’re following the DHS rules I talked about, front and back of documents, documents must be in your possession before you start. And again, in sending those documents or retrieving those documents, our recommendation is to avoid using emails to transmit that and utilizing systems. Any secure system certified nine certainly would be a secure system where the employee is submitting that information via the tool and uploading it to the software. So just make sure you’re following the rules of the DHS alternative procedure and documenting it in the additional information box on the form.
Jeff Plakans:
All right. Excellent. So thank you very much, Melissa. Thank you to all of you who have attended. This has been an action packed, information packed, and hopefully very informative session. Our goal at Commonwealth Payroll & HR is to make sure that we’re delivering value with every intersection with our prospects, with our clients, with their centers of influence and advisors. Hopefully today we have done that. As I mentioned before, you will be getting a recording of this. Do not hesitate to click on that QR code and let us know that you’re interested in Certify I-9 if that is of interest for you. If not, that’s okay. Hopefully you’ve learned something today and hopefully we haven’t ruined your afternoon with all of this new bit of information. Other than that, Melissa, thanks.
Melissa Prentice:
[inaudible 01:04:20].
Jeff Plakans:
Have a great day, everybody. We appreciate you joining us.
Melissa Prentice:
Thank you everyone. Bye-bye.
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