My comment was much too general and for that I apologize.
It all depends on which law or section of law specifically you end up breaking. A first offense for knowingly hiring an undocumented worker will be met with fines and the fines increase through the third offense. The government however has been increasingly using criminal penalties. Hiring more then ten will also much more often result in criminal penalties including prison time. Aiding and abetting, hiding from detection or encouraging aliens to enter the country is a felony unless I misunderstand the penalties in Title 8 and I know for a fact that's what one client we did an audit for is being charged with. Knowingly accepting fraudulent documents on the Form I-9 is punishable by up to five years in prison due to the certification statement in section two.
Detection rates of undocumented workers are mostly low due to employers not caring or not understanding what their requirements are under the law and lax enforcement by ICE/DHS. ICE however is stepping up investigations and just sent out another 1000 notices of intent to businesses of all sizes. We specialize in Form I-9 compliance and we constantly detect undocumented workers as part of that work. Companies that are enrolled in E-Verify are preventing many undocumented workers from even applying for jobs. Both the Senate and House are looking at bills that would make E-Verify mandatory for all employers which would make the detection rates a lot higher than they are now. Rumor has it that Senate Dems will kill these types of bills unless the Dream act passes but we'll see how long Reid can keep that up.
It all depends on which law or section of law specifically you end up breaking. A first offense for knowingly hiring an undocumented worker will be met with fines and the fines increase through the third offense. The government however has been increasingly using criminal penalties. Hiring more then ten will also much more often result in criminal penalties including prison time. Aiding and abetting, hiding from detection or encouraging aliens to enter the country is a felony unless I misunderstand the penalties in Title 8 and I know for a fact that's what one client we did an audit for is being charged with. Knowingly accepting fraudulent documents on the Form I-9 is punishable by up to five years in prison due to the certification statement in section two.
Detection rates of undocumented workers are mostly low due to employers not caring or not understanding what their requirements are under the law and lax enforcement by ICE/DHS. ICE however is stepping up investigations and just sent out another 1000 notices of intent to businesses of all sizes. We specialize in Form I-9 compliance and we constantly detect undocumented workers as part of that work. Companies that are enrolled in E-Verify are preventing many undocumented workers from even applying for jobs. Both the Senate and House are looking at bills that would make E-Verify mandatory for all employers which would make the detection rates a lot higher than they are now. Rumor has it that Senate Dems will kill these types of bills unless the Dream act passes but we'll see how long Reid can keep that up.