Becoming Legal : A guide to the new immigration law in the workplace : Commonly Asked Questions

June 30, 1987

Moschorak: Of course, it starts with the maintenance of the I-9 form itself. There are administrative violations--in other words, if an individual employer fails to complete an I-9 or fails to have it on file for the requisite period of time, it's considered a violation irrespective of whether or not the employee in question is a U.S. citizen, a legal alien or an illegal alien. Just failure to maintain the I-9 or to have completed the I-9 is, in and of itself, a violation and then that graduates to knowingly hiring illegal aliens, which is a separate violation under sanctions, and that gets into the administrative fine area and is followed by criminal penalties for "pattern and practice" violations of knowingly hiring and continuing to hire illegal aliens.

Q: Beyond that, though, what legal appeals does someone who is charged with these things have?

King: There will be a cadre of judges, as I understand it, that will hear appeals and the employer will have the ability to appeal to at least one higher level.

Q: Are there any situations where naturalized citizens can have hiring preference over immigrants who are still waiting for their citizenship under the amnesty law?

King: Both in government, for example, and in private industry there are certain jobs that require U.S. citizenship, so in those instances I would say yes, there's a possibility that U.S. citizens may be given priority over aliens simply because the job requires that you should be a U.S. citizen.

Q: If an immigrant worker believes that he is the victim of discrimination, who does he complain to? When should he complain, and what kind of proof should he supply the INS?

King: They should contact the Anti-Discrimination Unit, which is housed within the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. That sounds like a mouthful, but I understand that the Civil Rights Division is in the process of opening offices of special counsel throughout the United States and the people may apply to them whenever they feel they've been discriminated against. I don't have the telephone numbers or their locations as yet because I understand they're in the process of gearing up. One other suggestion: If there is a problem, they can always come to a fair employment practices officer, hopefully to conciliate a problem before it gets to the stage where a discrimination complaint could be filed.