The United States government has increased a variety of immigration-related fines/penalties, effective January 13, 2023. The higher penalties are only for those cases where the penalties are assessed on January 13, 2023 or thereafter.
These increases were pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015. Since that time, penalties have been adjusted yearly based on the rate of inflation. The increases in 2022 and 2023 are the largest in the past seven-plus years due to recent high inflation.
Below are the offenses with the old and new penalties for offenses incurred after November 2, 2015:
As the penalties continue to rise, it behooves all employers to pay careful attention to their I-9 forms and strongly consider conducting an internal I-9 audit in order to remediate the I-9 errors. If you have any questions, please contact your immigration or employment counsel.