Employers in the Hot Seat: Surviving Form I-9 Audits and Enforcement in Trump 2.0
"Hyundai did, too. And guess what? 200 Hyundai employees were arrested that day and detained, and it became an international diplomatic incident."
What it was about
Immigration enforcement in 2026 has expanded far beyond ICE raids into a multi-agency threat landscape: ICE, USCIS, EEOC, DOJ IER, Department of Labor, and aggressive state regulators. Every employer needs a proactive Form I-9 compliance program, informed by immigration counsel, before an audit or raid ever arrives.
By the numbers
Key notes
- Never waive the 72-hour document production window when ICE serves a Notice of Inspection, even if you plan to represent yourself.
- Run a sample internal I-9 audit (10-50 or 10% of your active population) through outside counsel rather than internally, so the review is protected by privilege.
- During M&A, complete new I-9s dated to the acquisition if you want to avoid inheriting the target company's I-9 liabilities. Doing nothing means you own their errors.
Take this back Monday
Have outside counsel run a privileged sample I-9 audit (10-50 employees, or 10%) before ICE ever shows up.
About 76% of I-9s have a finable error, and if ICE ever serves us, we get just 72 hours to produce them, so we need a proactive audit program now.
Watch out for
- Waiving the 72-hour period and handing over all I-9s immediately to ICE.
- Keeping a pre-printed stack of I-9 forms filled out in advance, which risks using an outdated form version.
- Using Wite-Out to correct errors instead of the red-pen cross-out-and-initial method.
Before advising employers on compliance, he was a trial attorney for DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, prosecuting the very worksite enforcement cases he now helps companies avoid.
