April 28, 2010. Threats to terminate faculty for failure to electronically file Employment Eligibility Forms may violate federal law.
UFF-FAU has been informed that over the past few days numerous FAU bargaining-unit faculty members have received emails from FAU Human Resources and their College administrators requesting that they refile their I-9 Employment Eligibility Form through the “E-Verify” system or face termination of their employment. I-9s are required by employers under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act to verify the citizenship and employment eligibility of non-US citizens no later than three days after their employment commences.
The threat to terminate employees for this may violate federal law since current employees have already fulfilled their responsibilities in this regard and are thus in compliance with the law. According to the law, “employers … may not use E-Verify on applicants or existing employees, may not terminate workers or take other adverse action based on tentative nonconfirmation.” Furthermore, universities are to utilize E-Verify to “employees assigned to a covered Federal Contract only”, or “Employees assigned to a covered Federal Contract and new hires throughout the organization.”
Threats by the administration to terminate faculty members’ employment in such an arbitrary fashion are imprudent and excessive, particularly in light of the recent history of the University that needn’t be recounted further here. We have asked the appropriate administrators to investigate this further and will notify faculty when we have received an explanation of this action.