Business Immigration Insights

Effective January 1, 2018, AB-450, which was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on October 5, 2017, imposes the following requirements on public and private employers in California:

• Except as otherwise required by federal law, an employer or other person acting on the employer’s behalf is prohibited from providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to enter nonpublic areas of a place of labor unless the agent provides a judicial warrant, except as specified
• Except as required by federal law, an employer or other person acting on the employer’s behalf is prohibited from providing voluntary consent to an immigration enforcement agent to access, review, or obtain the employer’s employee records without a subpoena or court order, subject to a specified exception
• Requires an employer to provide current employees notice containing specified information, by posting in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment information, of an inspection of I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms or other employment records conducted by an immigration agency within 72 hours of receiving the federal notice of inspection
• Requires an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide an affected employee* a copy of the notice of inspection of I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms.
• Prohibits the reverification of the employment eligibility of a current employee, except when required by federal law

Violations of each of the above provisions will subject employers to civil penalties ranging from $2,000 up $5,000 for a first violation and $5,000 to $10,000 for subsequent violations.

Employers in California should make sure to have in place an internal I-9 compliance policy and that employees who are responsible for administering the program and those who are the employers’ first points of contact to the general public are trained on AB-450’s new requirements.

* Employee identified by the immigration agency’s inspection results to be an employee who may lack work authorization or whose documentation has deficiencies.