Enrolling in the electronic verification system and the duties that follow, the audit that begins with three days' notice, correcting and retaining employment eligibility records, the penalties for paperwork failures compared with knowing violations, discrimination in how documents are demanded, changing employer while a residence petition is pending, and transferring a manager between related companies.
An internal review begins with a population drawn from payroll, proceeds either as a full census or as a documented sample, corrects defects under the annotation rules, and records the exercise in a memorandum stating scope, method, findings and corrections. The review must be applied uniformly across the population, and it must not be used to re-examine documents or to run existing employees through the electronic system.
The residence category for multinational executives and managers requires employment abroad for at least one year in the three years preceding the petition, or preceding entry as a nonimmigrant, in a managerial or executive capacity, with a qualifying employer, and continued service to the same employer or a related entity in that capacity. No labor certification is required, the prospective employer must have been doing business for at least a year, and specialized knowledge does not qualify.
It is unlawful to hire, or to continue to employ, a worker known to be unauthorized. Knowing includes actual knowledge and knowledge fairly inferred from facts that would lead a person exercising reasonable care to know the condition. The regulation gives three examples of constructive knowledge and prohibits any inference drawn from foreign appearance or accent. Penalties escalate across three tiers, and a pattern or practice carries criminal exposure.
An approved employment-based petition is automatically revoked on written withdrawal by the petitioner where the withdrawal is filed less than 180 days after approval, unless an associated adjustment application has been pending 180 days or more. A petition withdrawn after either of those points remains approved unless revoked on other grounds. In every case the job offer is rescinded, and the beneficiary needs a new petition unless the portability provision applies.
A notice of suspect documents advises the employer that, on the agency's review of the forms and the documentation submitted, the documents presented by named employees do not relate to those employees or are not valid for employment. It also advises of the criminal and civil consequences of continuing to employ unauthorized workers. The agency provides both the employer and the named employees an opportunity to present documentation showing the finding is mistaken.
An intracompany transfer requires a qualifying organization, meaning an entity that meets exactly one of the parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationships and is doing business as an employer in the United States and in at least one other country for the duration of the stay. The employee must have one continuous year of full-time employment abroad with a qualifying organization within the preceding three years, in a managerial, executive or specialized knowledge capacity.
A paperwork penalty is assessed for each individual with respect to whom a violation occurred, within a range the statute fixes and regulation adjusts. The proportion of defective forms in the population produces an error rate that positions the starting figure within the range. Five factors then adjust it: the size of the business, the good faith of the employer, the seriousness of the violation, whether the individual was unauthorized, and the history of previous violations.
A new job offer is demonstrated on a supplement filed with the adjustment application, supported by evidence that the new occupation is the same as, or similar to, the one the petition described. Same means an occupation resembling the original in every relevant respect; similar means one sharing essential qualities or bearing a marked resemblance. The determination is made on the totality of the circumstances, with occupational codes as one factor.
A proceeding to assess penalties begins with a notice of intent to fine setting out the charges, the provisions alleged to have been violated, and the penalty. The employer must file a written request for a hearing within thirty days of service, with five days added where service was by ordinary mail. A timely request permits settlement discussion before any complaint is filed with the hearing office; no request produces a final and unappealable order.
A verification compliance program consists of a named owner with authority, a written policy stating who completes each part of the form and by when, a training record for everyone who touches the process, a calendar covering completion deadlines and retention dates, a periodic review cycle, and a defined route for inspection correspondence. Each element exists to be produced, since good faith is assessed from documents rather than from testimony.
The acquisition regulation lists, as a separate cause for debarment, a determination by the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General that a contractor is not in compliance with the immigration employment provisions. That determination is expressly not reviewable in the debarment proceeding. Debarment on that ground runs for one year unless extended. Termination of the verification agreement separately produces a referral to a suspending and debarring official.
An employment-based petition remains valid for a new job if the adjustment application has been pending 180 days or more and the new job is in the same or a similar occupational classification. The period runs from the filing of the adjustment application, not from the petition. The qualifying petition must have been approved, or approved subsequently after a notification made at or after the 180-day point, and its approval must not have been revoked.
