New Domain for Blog
The Law Offices of Richard A. Gump, Jr. is happy to announce that our blog has moved. Please continue to follow our blog and be sure to subscribe to our RRS feed:
2013 Diversity Visa Program Lottery Registration to Begin October 4
The online registration period for the 2013 Diversity Visa Program (DV-2013) will begin on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), and conclude on Saturday, November 5, 2011, at noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4).
No Business Safe – ICE Audit Reveals Unauthorized Employees at Luxury Hotel in Salt Lake City
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the Grand America Hotel has been the subject of an ICE audit. While few details on the audit have been released, it appears that the hotel received a Notice of Suspect Documents regarding the inability of certain employees to prove employment eligibility.
This is another example of ICE’s willingness to go after employers, large or small, who hire authorized workers. If your business is the subject of an ICE audit, contact our office immediately.
DOS Announces Embassies in Copenhagen and Oslo Will No Longer Process IV or DV Applicants After October 1
Effective October 1, 2011, Embassies Copenhagen and Oslo will no longer process immigrant visa (IV) or diversity visa (DV) applications. These Embassies will neither schedule nor conduct IV or DV interviews after October 1. As of October 1, 2011, all immigrant and diversity visa interviews and adjudications for residents of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden will take place at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden.
OCAHO Orders Fine Reduction
Significant fines are becoming increasingly common as ICE continues to ramp up the number of I-9 audits conducted. In cases where ICE feels the employer should be fined due to substantive errors, uncorrected technical errors, knowingly hires and continuing to employ violations, ICE will serve the employer with a Notice of Intent to Fine (NIF). In instances where an NIF is served, charging documents will be provided specifying the violations committed by the employer. The employer has the opportunity to either negotiate a settlement with ICE or request a hearing before the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) within 30 days of receipt of the NIF. OCAHO will review the appropriateness of the fine levied by ICE.
In a recent OCAHO ruling, U.S. v. Teelah Inc., OCAHO ordered the respondent to pay $28,150 in civil penalties for failure to prepare and/or properly complete I-9 forms, finding that the penalties sought by ICE were disproportionate to the company’s size and resources.
At the Law Offices of Richard A. Gump, Jr., we represent clients clients who are subject to ICE audits. If your business has received a Notice of Inspection (NOI) from ICE, contact our office immediately.
ICE Audit Leads to Criminal Forfeiture of $600,000
A large tomato producer in southern Arizona pleaded guilty on August 26th and was sentenced for knowingly hiring and engaging in a pattern and practice of employing unauthorized aliens following an investigation by ICE. The court issued a criminal forfeiture judgment against Eurofresh, Inc. for $600,000. According to the factual basis of the plea, from August 2000 through December 2006, Eurofresh, Inc., through its former human resources director, knowingly hired, and continued to employ in southern Arizona, at least 17 supervisory-level employees despite the human resources director’s actual knowledge that these employees were unauthorized by law to work in the United States.
The Law Offices of Richard A. Gump, Jr. specializes in I-9 audits to help bring companies into compliance. Be on top of your company’s hiring practices before ICE comes knocking.
DOJ Slams Farmland Foods for Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination
The Department of Justice reached a settlement with Farmland Foods Inc., a major producer of pork products, resolving allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination by imposing unnecessary and excessive documentary requirements on non-U.S. citizens and foreign-born U.S. citizens when establishing their employment eligibility.
According to an investigation by the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), Farmland required all newly hired non-U.S. citizens and some foreign-born U.S. citizens at its Monmouth, Illinois plant to present specific and, in many cases, extra work-authorization documents beyond those required by federal law. Farmland has agreed to pay $290,400 in civil penalties, the highest civil penalty paid through settlement since enactment of the INA’s anti-discrimination provision in 1986.
A Family’s Courage
Jorge G. Castaneda in his excellent 2011 book entitled MANANA FOREVER: MEXICO AND THE MEXICANS captures the Mexican character of individual responsibility over collective efforts. Mexicans, Castaneda says, tend not to trust government or other collective social efforts and rely instead on their own initiative and skills to survive. For one Mexican doctor who lives in our community, the will to survive and succeed overcame fear and intimidation.
Just over a year ago, the doctor was kidnapped at gunpoint in front of his son in the middle of his hometown in Mexico. Threatening calls from extortionists followed at his office and home. Fearing for his life and that of his family, he brought them to the U.S. to stay with his sister while he tried to determine what he could do in a foreign country that would not allow him to stay or work. Going home permanently was not an option. He and his wife had successful professional careers in Mexico as a doctor and accountant. In the U.S. the couple was unauthorized for work of any kind due to their visitor status and money was tight. Although his sister had a good job, supporting six people, three of which are teenagers, was difficult and they soon sought help from our firm to try to find a way for him to live and work in the U.S. legally.
A small glimmer of hope emerged from the grim situation when he disclosed that many years ago his mother, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico living in Mexico, had applied for legal permanent residency for his sister, his brother and himself. He did not complete the process and remained in Mexico because he was attending college while his sister and brother came to the US and eventually became US citizens. Now that he was married and over 21, the quota system made that route to permanent residence hopeless.
We probed further to gain facts relating to the possible breakthrough: Was he a U.S. citizen by derivative status through his mother? Under certain circumstances a person born outside the U.S. to one U.S. citizen parent is a derivative U.S. citizen. After digging further into his family’s past, we discovered that his mom had lived in the U.S. for several years before marrying his father in Mexico. Now came the hard part: finding proof that his mother had lived in the US for at least 10 years of her life, five after the age of 14. She didn’t remember many details of her time in the US, only the city and state she lived in and with whom she had lived.
Many weeks later, after an attorney and paralegal spent countless hours of ancestry research and correspondence with the family, schools, churches, the Social Security Administration, and Citizenship and Immigration Services (the former INS), we were finally able to piece together just over 10 years of living in the US.
The documentation was organized and a timeline created. A US passport application was submitted in December 2010, along with the applicable regulations, timeline and documents showing his mother’s time spent in the U.S. The initial passport application was rejected and the application was resubmitted with a request for supervisor review in late January 2011.
After a request for extension of their visitor status was denied, the outlook became even grimmer for the family with funds running out and no relief in sight. They knew the penalty for staying in the U.S. longer than permitted but did not want to return home, where conditions were growing more dangerous by the day. Finally, the husband and wife decided to risk a return to Mexico to attempt to earn some badly needed income while the children would remain in the US with their aunt and cousin.
In March 2011, a supervisor contacted our office and indicated that he had all the required documents and he would approve the passport application if we could provide the mother’s original naturalization certificate (even though the government itself should have had proof of the document it issued). Mom located her original naturalization certificate several months later and it was submitted to the US Passport Agency in late June.
Three weeks later our office contacted the passport officer with whom we had originally spoken in March. He indicated the application was on his supervisor’s desk and would likely be approved. Within three days of this call, the US Passport Agency sent the US passport to our office via Federal Express. Bingo, he is now a U.S. citizen!
In just under a year’s time, our client went from being scared for his and his family’s life in their hometown to being a U.S. citizen. Additional efforts are underway to complete the process for the wife and children. He is now eligible to sponsor his wife and children for permanent resident green cards. The children, under 18 when their father received his U.S. citizenship, will be able to obtain U.S. passports for themselves once they receive their green cards, and the wife after 3 years of permanent residence.
The result? A Mexican family has hope and excitement for their future in the US due to a father’s desire for a better life for his family coupled with our team’s expertise in researching legal evidence of ancestry.
WSJ on the Effects of ICE Audits
For the third time in 2011, the Wall Street Journal published an article regarding the effects of ICE initiated immigration audits.
Self Check Expands to 21 States
E-Verify has expanded the number of states in which the Self Check program is available. Individuals can check their employment eligibility status before being hired in 21 states, including:
Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Colombia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, or Washington.
As a reminder, employers cannot require an individual to run a Self Check at any time during the hiring process. However, employers may utilize E-Verify to check the employment eligibility status of new hires.
