SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Following the ice raid at Buona Forchetta, ABC 10News spoke with legal experts on the verification process for business owners looking to hire new people.
In most cases, a job interview is the first time the person looking for the job and the person hiring meet and see each other.
"Questions that get at national origin before that offer of employment are unlawful,” Taleah Phillips, Employment Law Attorney at Gomez Trial Attorneys, said. "Where you were born, for instance, if you were born outside of the U.S., that's getting at national origin."
ABC 10News spoke with Phillips about what employers are required to do to verify someone's immigration status.
"Federal law does require that employers - once an offer of employment has been accepted - use the form I-9 and, on the USCIS website, there's specific types of verification that can be used in addition to that form,” Phillips said.
"Do you have, you know, any of the documents that are on the list? The employee then provides any of the documents that they have,” Ginger Jacobs, the Founder & Managing Partner at Jacobs & Schlesinger LLP said.
ABC 10news spoke with her about what would happen if someone's I-9 form shows an issue or they're undocumented, what's then required of business owners in the hiring process?
She tells me a notice tends to come from Social Security to the employers that something is up with their employees' documents.
"Then it's the employer’s responsibility to go to the employee and say we received this letter, you have - I believe it's ten but it's a certain number of days - to fix it,” Jacobs said. “And to come back, you know, with the situation resolved or we're going to have to let you go."
