The participants were challenged—at the outset—to envision how they would design the I-9 if they were starting from scratch.

Though comments ranged all over the topic, most agreed that the I-9 needs clearer instructions on it and should be simplified as much as possible in design and functionality.

It was evident also that many of the participants were confused by how many documents are needed for verification from the documents listed by the USCIS form under A, B and C categories.

Most attendees participated by teleconferencing. Participants included immigration attorneys, business leaders, immigration rights groups, and educators.

One participant summed up the proceedings this way:

A common refrain among the attendees was the need for a clear, simplified I-9 that would not result in the imposition of 'gotcha' fines by ICE [Immigration and Customers Enforcement] for paperwork errors when the employer has made a good faith effort to comply.

Among its many fine products, Personnel Concepts offers a clear guide to the employee verification process in its comprehensive I-9 Compliance Kit. Get yours today.

ICE hit the jackpot recently when it inspected Houston’s IFCO Systems, the nation’s largest manufacturer of pallets. Inspectors found 1,000 employees who were not authorized to work in the U.S., and IFCO was hit with a $20.7 million fine.

This approach is the reversal of the Bush-era ICE methodology when companies were raided and the illegal workers rounded up and sent off for deportation hearings. Now it’s the employers who are being targeted and fined.

“Employment is the primary driving force behind illegal immigration,” a DHS statement said. “By working with employers to ensure a legal workplace, ICE is able to stem the tide of those who cross our borders illegally or unlawfully remain in our country to work.”

The DHS statement said ICE would base upcoming investigations on tips from the public, reports from current and former employees and referrals from other law enforcement agencies. “ICE does not randomly target employers,” the statement said. “All investigations and arrests are based on specific intelligence obtained from a variety of sources.”

Though ICE is not directly raiding workforces, it reaffirmed its commitment to prosecuting and eventually deporting those who are found to be here illegally.

Employers, the rules and form for verifying your employees’ eligibility to work in the United States have both changed. Stay current–and in legal compliance–by picking up a copy of Personnel Concepts’ I-9 Compliance Kit.

The Bush-era "no match" rule gave employers three months to straighten out mismatched employee Social Security numbers or immigration documents that conflicted with what’s on record in D.C. After three months, the employers would have to fire those employees who couldn’t produce evidence of proper documentation (presumably because they’re using fake documents and numbers to cover up their illegal immigrant status).

Predictably for the Obama administration, the "no match" reversal was hailed by union supporters, which is somewhat ironic since unions just as predictably fear lower-cost labor as represented by undocumented workers, but the unions are engaging in a trade-off for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

"The no-match program was a flawed and ineffective enforcement tool that would have hurt U.S. citizens and other authorized workers," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO.

No doubt.

As for the E-Verify extension that has long been opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups (that rely on undocumented workers for cheap labor), even those who might otherwise cheer the extension saw a Trojan Horse in its midst.

Said a statement by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the extension is "further evidence of the Obama administration’s and the congressional leadership’s effort to raise a smokescreen while it dismantles all effective controls against illegal immigration."

No doubt.

Stay tuned to see what’s really going to transpire on the immigration front, provided the health care reform front ever recedes from center stage.

Ask anybody who’s dealt with the agency in either incarnation and you’ll hear horror stories of standing in blocks-long lines before dawn and spending the whole day waiting for your name to be called. Then a year or two later, you might hear something–if you’re lucky.

Someone caught on to the nightmare known as the INS in 1999 and began a modernization process, but they forgot to fund it. Then came 9/11, then the merger into DHS, and then more lack of funds.

Finally, late in 2008 IBM was chosen to take the whole process online in a $500-million, long-overdue project. Considering that it costs the USCIS $100 million a year just to ship and store the huge files it creates for each immigrant, it seems that they coulda and shoulda found the $500 million many long years ago. In five years of operation or so, the computerization will pay for itself.

The goal is to process each applicant in six months’ time, down from the 18 months to three years that it typically takes, using electronic applications and database filing.

The new system will allow government agencies, from the Border Patrol to the FBI to the Labor Department, to access immigration records faster and more accurately. In combination with initiatives to link digital fingerprint scans to unique identification numbers, it would create a lifelong digital record for applicants. It also would eliminate the need for time- and labor-intensive filing and refiling of paper forms, which are stored at 200 locations in 70 million manila file folders. (Big Brother has finally arrived!)

To its credit, the USCIS did manage to put its appointments system online a few years back (for another cool $500 mil), and those lines that snaked around several city blocks have now been reduced. Queues still exist, but people show up at appointed times rather than lining up for a limited number of seats each morning. That part is now more manageable, but the processing time is still far too lengthy.

The whole system is so dysfunctional that immigrants who get tired of the wait (or whose documents are simply lost or misplaced, rendering them a non-person) can turn to the court of last resort called (funnily) OIL, Office of Immigrant Litigation, which employs 250 lawyers and costs the government another $20 or more million a year to operate.