Inflation Causes Significant Increase in Immigration-Related Fines in May 2022

The United States government has increased a variety of immigration-related fines/penalties, effective May 9, 2022. 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. These increases are the largest in the past seven years due to recent high inflation.

Below are the offenses with the old and new penalties for offenses incurred after November 2, 2015:

Type Old New
Substantive Form I-9 violations - minimum $237 $252
Substantive Form I-9 violations - maximum $2360 $2507
Knowingly employing undocumented – 1st $590 to $4772 $627 to $5016
Knowingly employing undocumented – 2nd $4722 to $11,803 $5016 to $12,537
Knowingly employing undocumented – 3rd $7082 to $23,607 $7523 to $25,076
Immigration-related discrimination – 1st $487 to $3901 $517 to $4144
Immigration-related discrimination – 2nd $3901 to $9753 $4144 to $10,360
Immigration-related discrimination – 3rd $5851 to $19505 $6215 to $20,719
Unfair Documentary practices (document abuse) $195 to $1951 $207 to $2072
Document Fraud (USC 1324c(a)((1)-(4)) $487 to $9753 $517 to $10,360
Document Fraud (USC 1324c(a)((5)-(6)) $412 to $8224 $438 to $8736
Prohibition of indemnity bonds $2360 $2507

If you are concerned about your company’s immigration compliance, I invite you to read The I-9 and E-Verify Handbook, a book that I co-authored with Greg Siskind, available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0997083379.