Attorney Heidi Quayat did an “Ask Me Anything” on Nextdoor. We paraphrased and re-posted some of the best questions below. Keep reading for more great content.
Question
What documentation is required for a business to hire an immigrant, and to whom should it be submitted? Additionally, what safeguards and protections are available for businesses in this process?
Answer
The first question to ask is whether the immigrant is already currently authorized to work for any US employer. Many of them are, including permanent residents (“green card holders”), some spouses of employment-based nonimmigrants, and others. If the immigrant is already authorized to work for any US employer, you can hire the person the same way that you hire anyone else, without any additional paperwork. Keep in mind that asking questions about a person’s immigration status beyond asking whether the person is currently authorized to work for any US employer could get you in trouble with labor laws.
Some of these employees will require an extension of their work authorization at some point. You will generally be able to confirm that this is the case from the documents that the employee presents to complete his or her Form I-9 upon employment or slightly before. The documents will generally state when the work authorization expires. Extending the work authorization usually involves an attorney sending a form to the correct government office and submitting documents to support the extension request. An employer is not obligated to pay to extend an employee’s work authorization.
If the immigrant is not already authorized to work in the US, the business can sometimes apply for work authorization for the immigrant. At the most basic level, this involves mailing a form or a series of forms to the correct government office/s along with supporting documents. Knowing whether the immigrant qualifies for work authorization, what forms to submit, when to submit them, how to complete them, and what supporting documents are needed requires the expertise that people pay an attorney for. These answers vary greatly depending on the history of the worker and the type of business/job involved.
I’m not 100% sure what you meant in your question by “protections” that a business has. According to the main government agency in charge of these matters (USCIS), businesses are not required to be document experts. If a new employee provides a document that reasonably appears to be genuine and relate to the person presenting it, businesses are free to accept the document as valid for employment authorization purposes. The government has written guidance for employers on what documents are valid to prove employment authorization here: https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-resources/handbook-for-employers-m-274. This manual is pretty comprehensive and will probably answer any question a person may have on the documents required to hire an immigrant.
If you would like more detail on any of these points, please reach out to me.