The firm’s lawyers regularly train and audit clients for I-9 and E-Verify compliance and defend companies when they are investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Individual Employer Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In addition to opposing any sanctions or penalties against clients for mistakes or situations in which workers were employed using invalid documents, the firm’s lawyers have experience in negotiating with ICE, helping companies find and hire replacement employees, and in accomplishing a respectful separation of employees determined not to be eligible to be employed.

The range of employment-related immigration services regularly provided by the firm’s lawyers include the following:

• Conducting I-9 audits to resolve issues in advance of ICE investigations.
• Conducting E-Verify audits to resolve issues in advance of DOJ investigations.
• Training company employees in proper procedures for completing I-9 and E-Verify requirements.
• Defending companies during ICE and DOJ investigations and subpoenas.
• Implement strategies to avoid sanctions, civil penalties and criminal charges arising out of undocumented people who are or were on the payroll.
• Counsel clients regarding how to respond to inquires from police, the Social Security Administration, or other government agencies regarding identity issues affecting employees and SSA No-Match letters.
• Strategies for dealing with workplace raids by ICE or other law enforcement or government agencies.
• Responding to states who conduct E-Verify audits.
• Responding to General Contractors who seek verification of I-9 data from subcontractors.
• Handling separations of employees who the government communicates are ineligible to continue to be employed in the U.S.
• Defending companies in debarment proceedings based on ICE findings.
• Managing media relations and serving as media spokespersons for media inquiries and coverage about immigration-related events and issues.
• Creating and Implementing Immigration Compliance policies for handbooks
• Handling specialized E-Verify requirements for government contractors.

The firm frequently handles visa matters on behalf of businesses and individuals, including foreign corporate executives and managers, foreign investors, engineers, accountants, doctors, nurses, scientists, agricultural and livestock specialists, and other professionals and non-professionals, and businesses that need those employees.

Such services include the following:

• Employment-based/business immigration, including:
  • Specialty occupations in fields requiring highly specialized knowledge (H-1B);
  • Aliens of extraordinary ability (O-1, 0-2, 0-3);
  • Business transferees (L-1);
    NAFTA professional workers (TN);
  • Treaty trader/treaty investor (E-1, E-2 and E-3);
  • Temporary workers performing other services or labor of a temporary or seasonal nature (H-2B);
  • PERM;
  • J-1 Waivers;
  • I-140, and etc.
• Family-based immigration, including:
  • Fiancé visas, spouse visas, parent visas, and sibling visas;
  • Provisional Waivers (I-601A); and
  • Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
• Green card/Permanent Residency applications.
• Naturalization/Citizenship applications.

The prominence of the firm’s immigration practice was recognized by Arizona Business Magazine when it described Julie Pace as the “go to” lawyer in Arizona for business immigration compliance. In addition, the firm’s lawyers were selected as contributing authors for the book “Legal Briefs on Immigration Reform from 25 of the Top Legal Minds in the Country, published in 2010. At the request of the ASU Law School, three of the firm’s attorneys wrote a law review article entitled “Placing SB 1070 and Racial Profiling into Context, and What S.B. 1070 Reveals about the Legislative Process in Arizona,” Arizona State Law Journal, Summer 2011, Vol. 43, Issue 2.

The firm’s lawyers represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and 10 other national and Arizona business groups in challenging the constitutionality of the Arizona employer sanctions immigration law, which was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Julie Pace chaired the Arizona Chamber of Commerce’s immigration task force and has been interviewed and quoted in numerous national and Arizona media articles and programs on immigration issues, including CNN, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and more.