Anderson counseled farmers. Like all employers, farmers must file standard I-9 forms for every worker. These are the forms, familiar to anyone who has started a job since 1986, that document that employers asked new hires for valid identification. Anderson said farmers are not required to verify that any of these documents are real. In fact, it can be extremely difficult to tell whether you're looking at the real thing, and even harder to get the U.S. government to verify it.
Employers can get into trouble by looking too closely at an employee's papers.
Employers can't ask for specific documents, either. They can ask only that workers show some documentation, either singly or in combination, from the federal government's approved list. Farmers are not required to keep copies of any documents on file. But if they do it for one employee, they have to do it for all, Anderson said. In the event of a raid, he said, farmers will lose the illegal workers they might have, but as long as farmers file I-9 forms, they are protected.