Illegal Alien Using False Documents Maryland

[mcdougal]

Hello,

After receiving an anonymous letter and confronting an employee, he admitted to me that he is using his cousin's name and documents to work for us. He states he has applied for but has not received his work papers. I immediately terminated him but I now have a few questions:

1. Do I have to pay him for the two weeks he has already completed? If so, I can't pay him under the false name, nor can I pay him under his real name as he is not legally employed by us. So what do I do?

2. Am I legally required to report this to some enforcement agency?

3. I have also cancelled his health insurance - are there any issues with that?

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

[drruthless]

Hello,

After receiving an anonymous letter and confronting an employee, he admitted to me that he is using his cousin's name and documents to work for us. He states he has applied for but has not received his work papers. I immediately terminated him but I now have a few questions:

1. Do I have to pay him for the two weeks he has already completed? If so, I can't pay him under the false name, nor can I pay him under his real name as he is not legally employed by us. So what do I do?

I would suggest you speak with an Attorney


2.

Am I legally required to report this to some enforcement agency?

Yes. I'd start with the INS

3.

I have also cancelled his health insurance - are there any issues with that?

Not anymore.

Thanks for any advice you can give me

You’re going to have to explain why you didn’t verify his identity, I would suggest you speak with an Attorney before you do anything.
The penalties for hiring an illegal alien have increased greatly and the INS is not really interested in hearing excuses these days for you not following hiring policies they have made very (so they claim) clear.
Good Luck.

..____________________
~ Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
.....for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup

[DAW]

Yes, you must pay the employee for all time worked. Court decisions and federal DOL guidance are clear on this. Pay him under whatever name he wants. Either report under the bad ID# or use 999-99-9999. But federal DOL is very clear that you must pay him and ICE is very clear that you must terminate him (which you did). You need to do exactly what the laws tell you to do and not get creative here. You might want to send a brief letter explaining what happened with your tax returns, but breaking the law to make your tax returns look pretty is not the answer.

More generally, the IRCA law (ICE) says you have 3 days to review the I-9 and supporting documents. The law was very specifically written in such a way as to create the possibility of a worker without authorization working as many as three days. The employer is expected to end employment at what point the I-9 testing is known to have failed. In your case, you are using a different IRCA provision in which I-9 testing apparently succeeded but you later find a problem and terminate the employee. You have to pay the employee. Period. You have to report the wages. Period. You cannot fail to do either of those without breaking some law. IRS says to use 999-99-9999 if you do not have a good SSN. You have clear guidance already.