“Hello, I’m from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement. I have something for you.”

This simple statement instills terror in the hearts of a few unlucky HR executives each day. In an average week, more than 50 HR leaders hear these words from a U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) inspector who presents them with a Form I-9 Notice of Inspection (NOI).

What do you do when you receive the unwanted NOI?

From the moment you’re handed the Form I-9 audit notice, you have 3 business days to pull together your response package. Typically, the NOI will tell you exactly when you have to present your package of records. Ideally you’ve done some advance planning, and maybe you’ve even taken these steps to prepare for the I-9 audit.

Regardless of how much advance planning you’ve done or not, now it’s time to act.

With no time to waste, the sequence in which you do things will make a difference to your outcome. The larger your organization, the more work an I-9 audit will be, and the more time-pressed you will be. (Note: this post was written with large employers in mind, but it should benefit organizations of all sizes.)

So you’re racing the clock. Where should you focus your energy? There are five key activities you should focus on in your three days, in specific order. Some take minutes or hours while others take days, but all are critical.

When you get the NOI, the first thing to do is to scope the work, right away:

Step 1: Scope the work

Get familiar with the scope of the records you’ll need to produce. You’ll likely need to rely on different people to pull different types of records, so a careful review of the ICE paperwork will help you understand who you’ll need to involve and what to ask of them. ICE often investigates multiple work locations as part of a single I-9 audit. Carefully review all the paperwork ICE submitted, for all audit locations.

The NOI will typically ask for I-9s for all current employees as well as those terminated in the previous three years, for the work locations being audited. In addition, you’ll need to supply a copy of any documents that were copied as part of the employment eligibility verification process.

Here is an example NOI. As you’ll see the NOI specifies additional records you’ll be required to supply, such as payroll data, tax statements, a list of current and terminated employees at the audit locations, and more.

The goal of this first action is for you to quickly understand the list of people you will need to involve your next step, your kickoff meetings.

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This is the first of five posts outlining a series of specific actions you should take when you receive an I-9 audit notice from ICE. Subscribe or check back for these upcoming posts on this topic:

• Hold two kickoff meetings (Step 2)
• If necessary, build your case for more time (Step 3)
• Search for these specific errors (Step 4)
• Prepare for follow-on work (Step 5)

Tracker’s Audit Response Team guides customers through ICE I-9 audits. Employers who use Tracker’s electronic I-9 & E-Verify solution have been rewarded with perfect ICE audit results showing 0 errors.

Disclaimer: The content of this post does not constitute direct legal advice and is designed for informational purposes only.