Transcript:

Kleine 

Hello everybody and welcome back to Immigration nation. I’m your host today. My name is Kleine and I’m here with Deirdre Nero. She’s based out of Florida. We’re so excited to have her here today. Deidre, go ahead and tell us what we’re going to be talking about today, a little bit about your firm – give us the scoop. 

Deirdre Nero 

Hi, everybody. I’m Deirdre Nero. I am the owner of Nero. Immigration law, which is an immigration law boutique based out of Miami, FL. I’ve been practicing immigration law for 20 years. I can’t believe it. I feel very old every time I say that. And I started my law firm 15 years ago, we’re having our actual 15 year anniversary next month, so that’s where. 

Kleine 

Congratulations. 

Deirdre Nero 

We’re going to throw a party and everything, so that’s fun. I. Time flies. I can’t believe it. Every time I say that. I’m like, how is it possible? 

Kleine 

So cool 15 years. Wow. 

Deirdre Nero 

Yeah, yeah. 15 years on my own 20 practicing. I went to my. 20 year Law School reunion recently and I was just like, Oh my God. 

Kleine 

Yeah, how’s that? 

Deirdre Nero 

By. Like so funny. When I was little, my mother always used to say to me, you’re gonna blink your eyes and before you know it, you’re. Gonna be old and I. Would just laugh at her and then now, as I’m aging, I’m like, oh gosh, you know. I was always right about everything. Because it’s so true and that’s. How I feel, but so the firm is, like I said, an immigration boutique. We focused primarily on what we call business, unemployment, immigration. Which is kind of our sweet spot, but we also do, you know, all kinds of immigration law, mostly on the what we call the benefits side. So helping people proactively apply for benefit like a visa, a green card, citizenship work permits, travel permits, you know, all the things that you have to affirmatively apply for. Is more where we’re kind of centered in terms of our. Practice area. We don’t really handle asylums or deportation defense, but we run kind of the gamut of. The rest of the Immigration Services that any foreign national or company that is dealing with foreign nationals could probably need and and I thought today it would be really interesting to talk about what we call employer immigration compliance. So that’s kind of. What I was thinking. Would be a. Nice topic for us to chat about. 

Kleine 

Right. Sweet. And you guys are the best of the best. They’re the firm to look for in Miami. We’re so excited. To have them. Here today. Yeah, we’re. See. Well, let’s just jump right into it. So like Deirdre said, they are all about the proactive and the beneficial side of, you know, kind of this immigrant, this business, immigration aspect. So be that as it may, let’s jump right into it. What is? What is it? What is employer immigration compliance? 

Deirdre Nero 

And what is it applies to? Worded it that way because. Actually, employer immigration compliance is kind of one of the things that we that does have like a defensive component that we do here at the firm. Which is funny because I’m always saying we have a terminal about like affirmatively applying for things. But the employer immigration compliance has kind of a defensive aspect and an affirmative aspect. So what if their employer, immigration and compliance like basically that’s? 

Kleine 

Oh, interesting. 

Deirdre Nero 

A very broad term that encompasses helping companies and employers stay in compliance with immigration law and the cool thing that I like about employer immigration compliance practice is that you can really help a really wide array of employee. There’s employers around the United States that have any employees on payroll need to worry about employer immigration compliance, even if they don’t have a single foreign national working for them. Every single person that works for them is a U.S. citizen, which you know in today’s day and age is becoming less and less. Common, but you know it. It’s possible that a company has only U.S. citizen employees. Just, you know, by coincidence. Those companies. Have to comply with the same regulations and a lot. Of times they. Don’t understand that bigger companies tend to know a lot about this stuff because they tend to have like a whole department dedicated to dealing with this stuff, and typically it’s part of what HR. Yeah, well, typically it kind of falls under like an HR type. 

Kleine 

Just compliance. 

Narrator 

Gotcha. 

Deirdre Nero 

Role at larger companies, So what we find, at least what I find at my practice is that a lot of times it’s smaller and medium companies. That are really kind of needing a lot more education on this topic and needing a lot more help on this topic. And then during the pandemic we kind of started talking about other things that were more kind of urgent and timely relating to travel, all that stuff. But now that we’re kind of on the other side, thank God of the pandemic, we’re starting to look at. 

Narrator 

Right. 

Deirdre Nero 

This topic a lot more closely again and trying to educate the community, but then also helping employers. Not just with learning what they need to know and training their teams on what they need to know and how to handle this stuff properly for sure. And also if they get in trouble and that’s where the defensive side comes in. If they get in trouble helping them out of the trouble, hopefully. 

Kleine 

Oh, that makes sense. 

Deirdre Nero 

Probably then. Negotiate any fines that they might be facing. So basically when we talk about employer immigration, we’re talking about. I-9 compliance. I-9 if you’ve ever been. Employed at a company you’ve hopefully filled out an I-9. That is the form that you’re filling out within the first three days of working. That an employer basically has to confirm the identity of the person they’re hiring and that the person is authorized to work in the United States. 

Narrator 

Got you. 

Deirdre Nero 

So that’s form I-9 and it needs to be done. Right at the beginning. So when when a new employee is being onboarded, the employee is supposed to fill out their part on their first day of work for pay or before they even start. If they’ve already kind of accepted the offer and you know, they know that they’re starting on X date, they can fill out their portion, you know the day before or whatever, but. By the end of the first day of work for pay and then the employer. Is supposed to fill out their portion and verify the documents of the employee by the third. The end of the third day of work for pay, and those are business days and business day of the company, right? So that’s another thing that I teach employers is like not every company has the same accounts. Business is the same way. Like a hospital is open 24/7 365 so a hospital is going to count every day as a business day where? Like a law firm or, you know, an A something that’s like an office style, you know, kind of company is probably only gonna count. Monday through Friday. As business days, because that’s the only days that they’re actually open and operational. So that’s one component of employer migration compliance and their component. Which is kind of like a hot topic in Florida where my firm is located right now in particular, but nationwide is always something that we’re talking about is E-Verify, which is basically an online system for. Checking the employees. Identity and work authorization, but something that confuses a lot of employers is that it doesn’t replace I-9. It’s in addition. To I9I-9 is mandatory for every single company that has any employees payroll, unless it’s just the owner. So if it’s like you own the company and you’re the only employee, you don’t have to own yourself. But that’s kind of like The only exception, so I 9 is like across the board, everify on the other hand is in many states voluntary. But in some states it’s mandatory. And and then in other states, it’s like voluntary in some situations and mandatory in other situations. So that’s something that we work with a lot with employers. And then the third component is kind of immigration related discrimination and. 

Narrator 

Deirdre Nero 

Not also falls under kind of this whole employer migration compliance and that’s like a lot of that has to do with like the way that you do your conduct, your I not and your E-Verify, you can’t do it. In a discriminatory. Way, right? But then there’s also things with, like, the hiring practice, like the way you advertise a job. Like, are you able to say? Like we only hire U.S. citizens like, no, but in some of the very limited circumstances you can do that, but it’s like ultra limited, right? There’s like a lot of rules. That prevents employers from discriminating against potential and and current employees be due to their immigration status or their nationality, or their sort of just citizenship. So those are. That’s employer immigration compliance, and that’s one of the many things that we do. At our firm and it’s something that I’d like to talk about a lot because I feel like there’s. A lack of knowledge on that topic in particular. 

Kleine 

No, you have completely broadened my perspective about this whole thing. I thought it was just get your I-9 in and we’re good to go. We’ll we’ll fill out the forms, but no, it’s it’s on the offense, it’s on the defense, like everything you’ve just said and probably more that we won’t even be able to touch on. 

Deirdre Nero 

And also there’s kind of always some little. New thing happening. 

Kleine 

For sure. 

Deirdre Nero 

At the end of last year, we had a new form come out that made a lot of changes, right and there were a lot of like new things that employers need to learn around the new the new form. And then there was also like, a new process that came out for actually checking documents. 

Kleine 

So always something. 

Deirdre Nero 

So we had so then we started again like OK, let’s educate and. Let’s teach the. New stuff and teach. You know when you can use the new procedures when you can’t all of that and then also being in Florida last year Florida passed mandatory E-Verify for companies. That have at least 25 employees. Gotcha. So that then created a whole other conversation. You know, sub conversation in the employer immigration compliance space about. E-Verify and Mandatory E-Verify in Florida in particular, but then also just E-Verify in general because some of the new procedures that they put out for verifying documents for the I-9. I mean, when I say documents, I mean the identity documents of an employee, so passport drivers license, green card. 

Narrator 

Hmm. 

Deirdre Nero 

You know, whatever they’re using as their identity document and then the document that they show. To prove that they have working authorization in the US so that can also be their passport, their green card, their work permit. But it can be something else as well, depending on the immigration status of the individual and how they’re authorized to work. And there’s actually like a chart that shows you all of the potential. Kind of combinations of documents and employers are tasked with actually like inspecting that documentation and so they came out with like this alternate procedure that there’s a digital way to do it, which was never. Kind of like an across the board thing, but they said that you have to be doing a verify. You have to be an employer that uses E-Verify so that whole conversation kind of came along. Around the same time that Florida passed mandatory E-Verify, so we’ve been talking about this stuff a lot, at least in my neck of the woods, but also kind of across the country because of the alternate procedures that they put out. For companies that you see verify in all states, right, that’s. That’s not specific. 

Kleine 

To Florida? Yeah. I mean, I’m sure being in South Florida and Miami specifically, there is just so much stuff going on. So I’m, I’m sure you know with all this employee. Compliance stuff, you know, and the new changes coming out, there’s just so much to do. But you know, in the scope of all of this, like how long does all this take for you guys to, you know, go in there and like maybe prepare for an audit and to like, teach all how long does that take and how long? Does the actual like. You know, if the government were to come and do that, like, what’s the timeline looking like and what is also that comes with that? 

Deirdre Nero 

That’s a good question. So a lot of that is going to depend on the size of the company, right? Like obviously I’ve been doing internal audit on a small company a lot faster than I can do it on like a larger company because in theory you’re going to have an I-9 for every employee, and then you’re also going to have. Well, I nines maybe for employees that are not working there anymore, but are still within like the retention period of how long the employers need to keep the I-9. So right it really depends on the size of the company, how long it’s going to take, but also. You know, depending on how much they want to pay me, I’m happy to. Dedicate, you know. Large slots of time at A at a time there. Or you know, maybe I could. Maybe I only visit them. Periodically you know. I think that that depends on the needs of the company. When you’re talking about a proactive like, let’s go in and train your people and get your ducks in a row because hopefully we’re not like under the gun. Of an audit where, you know, we can kind of do it at our own pace and at the employers pace. Unfortunately you know if there is an audit then we will have a set timeline. We will have you know to produce the documents only a couple of days and then a lot of times you’ll get an opportunity to correct. Mistakes. And then we’ll have a, you know, a set time frame for that. And then typically if there’s a final kind of after you do any corrections that they let you do, then they give you kind of like a final notice like this is what we’re going to find. So and then you know typically what an attorney will do at that point is within typically like a 30 day period. Put the government on notice that we would like to appeal that and that usually is what sets off negotiations cause. Well, I don’t really want to go to court and, like, do anything in court, to be honest with you. I’m not a I’m. Not a court person. But we usually say that, you know, we want a hearing basically on this topic and then that is what then instigates the negotiations. And so typically then. The government attorney will reach out to to myself or whoever the attorney is on the on this matter and start negotiating. And the idea is that we try to bring down the fines as much as we can for an employer. And we also try to get them like a longer time frame to pay it. Back, Rachel, I can take the fine that they said is you’re fine. I can decrease it by, you know, a certain percentage. And then I can also get the payment terms spread out over, you know, a long period of time. It’s going to be a lot less painful for the employer and a lot less likely to put them out of business. If you know. 

Kleine 

For sure. 

Deirdre Nero 

Do those things for them. So that’s kind of the idea behind. 

Narrator 

It. 

Deirdre Nero 

If you’re getting audited, though, it’s going to be very low chance that you get away with no penalties and no fines unless you have been very proactive in kind of doing your internal audits and making sure that you’re doing everything the right way. 

Narrator 

Done. 

Deirdre Nero 

Then you might be able to to get lucky there and have you know no fines or like minimal fines, you know, but. 

Kleine 

Yeah. 

Deirdre Nero 

The the less you pay attention to this stuff beforehand, the more likely it is that there’s going to be kind of significant penalties on the other end. If you were to get in trouble. So they’re kind of like built in timelines depending on. What you’re doing in terms of like when you’re in the audit side, like which stage of that you’re at when you’re in the proactive side, there really isn’t a timeline like no time like the present is my kind of theory on that because. 

Kleine 

Right. 

Deirdre Nero 

You don’t know when a government official is going to walk through the front doors of your company and. 

Kleine 

Yeah. 

Deirdre Nero 

Basically, subpoena your records, right? Like catch up. 

Kleine 

Better safe than sorry on that front. 

Deirdre Nero 

Yeah. Also, there are certain I feel like industries that maybe have like a little bit more of an eye on them because they just historically have. Higher levels of non compliance or of unauthorized people that tend to work for those companies. Also, there is kind of the feeling that if you are participating in E-Verify, you’re almost like subjecting your company to like a real time. Audit because that. Does get submitted to the government so like whereas I nines you’re you’re supposed? To. File them correctly and maintain them correctly and and and keep them in compliance with the law in case you get audited. The E-Verify is something that’s submitted online in like real time. And that’s submitted to the government. So the government is like looking. 

Kleine 

Turned it in. 

Deirdre Nero 

At that stuff, yeah. So. I’m expecting now, especially like in Florida now that either buy has become mandatory for companies 25 and and and higher that. The number of I-9 audits is going to increase based on what they’re seeing off of the E-Verify. 

Kleine 

OK so I have one more question for you. Like what does? Success look like. For for those people like do you have like a success story that you like? This is what you tell. Tell people like here’s, you know, like this person was doing something wrong, but we were able to save it. In time, like maybe. 

Deirdre Nero 

We have a couple of success stories like that. I mean, definitely have had several companies that you know, we did internal audits for them later. They did end up getting audited and it like, wasn’t that bad. It was like, few little things here and there, like really low fines. But then they ended up just kind. 

Kleine 

Yeah. Oh good. 

Narrator 

Of. 

Deirdre Nero 

You know, taken care of very easily and it was like a non event type of thing. Yeah. But that’s because they had really been like Ultra proactive beforehand. But unfortunately I have only you. Know fewer much. Fewer of those kinds of stories. I have a lot more stories on the other side, which is like. Them an employer coming to me once they’re already being audited and it was like really bad. Yeah, but 6 total success on that end. Looks like, you know, we were able to mitigate the fine by like you know, 3040% and getting it spaced out over, you know, five years time to repay it. And so at least you know, look, you still are going to have to pay something. 

Kleine 

That’s great. 

Deirdre Nero 

But at least. It’s not putting your company in a position that you’re going to go bankrupt trying to trying to do. That right, so. 

Kleine 

For sure. But what’s been like the highest fine that you’ve seen? 

Deirdre Nero 

Oh gosh. I mean hundreds of thousands on small companies. 

Kleine 

What? 

Deirdre Nero 

Company with like 20-30 people and it was like several $100,000 fine. 

Kleine 

It can be like. 

Deirdre Nero 

Really bad. Oh my. God, people out today bad. I mean, it can be pretty bad, especially if you’re like. An egregious violator, but there’s also, like levels of fines, right? Like if you take simple paperwork violations and things like the fines aren’t as high. But then if they have, like, reason to believe that you’re, like, knowingly hiring people that are not authorized to work, or that you’re, like, falsifying documents, you know, then it. Gets. Progressively worse and in the state of Florida, you have to use E-Verify mandatory like that is the law right now. So if you’re not doing that right now, you’re breaking the law. However, then started actually doing the penalized yet. And they’re going to start that this sum. So we’ll see how bad that looks, but my, you know, recommendation is that you start figuring. That out now. Because it’s already past time like this went into effect in July and it’s going to start being penalized in July of this year, so you know. If you haven’t figured this out already yet and you’re going to fall under the scope of that law, you need to figure that out now, basically, and and then that will lend to you, in my opinion, looking also at your I-9 practices and everything, because everything is kind of connected, right? So. 

Kleine 

Sure. 

Deirdre Nero 

It’s a good opportunity to kind of look at your entire employer immigration compliance. Situation at your company and how it’s being handled and what are your policies and how are you doing it now. And like really kind of look at whether you need some revamping there or whether you even have a policy, maybe you need to institute a policy because you don’t have one at all, right. So we can come in and kind of help in that regard. Not only with looking at what you’re doing now, but also then helping you come up with a policy going forward that’s gonna put set your company up for success, put you in the best position. To avoid being penalized and and UM. You know having. To pay all those fines and everything but. 

Kleine 

Yeah, absolutely. And to our listeners out there, please reach out to Deirdre. It’s www.neuroimmigration.com. She’s in Florida, but I’m sure she will answer any calls or requests outside of the state. 

Deirdre Nero 

That we we practice nationwide, which is really fun with immigration law because immigration law is federal law. I mean, outside of some of these like. Very specific. 

Narrator 

Kleine 

Right. 

Deirdre Nero 

It’s federal law, so we are able to practice in every state, which is awesome because I get to have clients from all over and you see my background in New York and everyone says, oh, are you in New York and? I’m like, oh. I wish no. I’ve been working so I love New York. 

Kleine 

Not too bad. 

Deirdre Nero 

But. The Statue of Liberty is kind of like our law firm mascot, so. I. Dogs. 

Kleine 

Love it. Do you have any parting words or any any like last closing statements you want to share with our listeners? 

Deirdre Nero 

I mean, I just would love for you guys to follow us on social. We, we have Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. It’s at neuro immigration. You can find me dear De Niro on LinkedIn personally as well. And on Facebook and Instagram personally as well. In addition to the law firm channels. And our phone number is 305. 351-1079 and you see up there on the screen our website on that client already told you so I’d be more than happy, you know, to to speak with you and answer questions that you might have about anything we talked about today or anything else immigration related. And I wish you guys a lot. Of luck I. Am so happy that I got to do this. Mine. It was a lot of fun. And thanks for having me. Yes, of. 

Kleine 

Course, you’ve been awesome. Thanks. Yay. Thank you and thank you to everyone for listening. 

Narrator 

This podcast has been. For general information purposes. Only and is not legal advice. Create and response as. It does not constitute an attorney-client relation.