I-9 Penalty Reclassification and ICE Worksite Enforcement: Defending Employers After the Virtue Memorandum’s Repeal

Timothy D’Arduini, Partner-in-Charge | Klasko Immigration Law Partners

Timothy (Tim) C. D’Arduini is the Partner-in-Charge of Klasko Immigration Law Partners’ Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm’s global immigration and mobility, corporate immigration, and worksite compliance teams. A leader of the firm’s worksite compliance practice, Tim advises multinational clients on employment eligibility verification, immigration-related fraud investigations, worksite enforcement actions, and global right-to-work requirements. He is known for a holistic, collaborative, and proactive approach to managing clients’ immigration programs and sponsored populations in the United States and worldwide, tailoring strategies that advance both talent and compliance objectives.

• Education & Credentials

Tim earned his B.S. from Georgetown University and his J.D. from Rutgers Law School, where he served as Senior Managing Editor of the Rutgers University Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Justice Jaynee LaVecchia of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

• Recognition & Leadership

Tim is ranked in Chambers USA as an “Up and Coming” attorney and recognized in The Legal 500 U.S. as a “Rising Star.” He was tapped to launch and manage Klasko’s Washington, D.C. office, anchoring the firm’s expansion into the Mid-Atlantic region and strengthening its national and international capabilities. He is also recognized for cultivating diverse, inclusive legal teams, reflecting his conviction that varied backgrounds produce the most creative and multi-dimensional client outcomes.

• Professional Involvement

Tim is a frequent speaker and CLE faculty member on worksite compliance, I-9 enforcement, and immigration policy, presenting to national attorney audiences through platforms including myLawCLE. He maintains an extensive network of immigration policymakers and practitioners inside and outside the Beltway, supporting the firm’s well-known impact on immigration policy and litigation.

• Experience

Tim primarily serves multinational corporations and Fortune 500 companies across the financial services, technology, consumer products, manufacturing, health care, insurance, and defense industries, and has overseen a multimillion-dollar U.S. visa transactions portfolio, leading day-to-day relationships with legal, HR, and business leaders that produced considerable portfolio growth. On the compliance side, he develops protocols and policies, oversees privileged internal audits that mitigate employer risk, and defends companies in administrative subpoena matters and worksite enforcement actions — including raids involving potential civil and criminal liability — integrating proactive compliance practices that help clients avoid penalties while maintaining operational integrity. Before joining Klasko, Tim was Global Immigration & Mobility Partner at Quarles & Brady LLP, a Partner at Mayer Brown, and an Associate at Baker McKenzie.

John W. Mazzeo, Counsel | Seyfarth Shaw LLP

John W. Mazzeo is Counsel in Seyfarth Shaw’s Immigration practice and a former ICE prosecutor recognized as an authority in employment eligibility verification, with a practice centered on Form I-9 and E-Verify compliance, worksite enforcement defense, and immigration-related fraud prevention. His career reflects a sustained focus on helping businesses achieve compliance and mitigate risk by pairing deep regulatory expertise with technology-driven verification solutions — a perspective shaped by experience on the government, in-house, and law firm sides of the same issues.

• Education & Credentials

John earned his J.D. from Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law and his B.A. from Ursinus College.

• Recognition & Leadership

John was appointed to Law360’s 2025 Editorial Advisory Board, representing the immigration topic on the strength of his extensive knowledge of Form I-9 and employment eligibility verification law. In 2024, he was appointed Vice-Chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Verification and Documentation Liaison Committee after serving as a Member from 2023 to 2024 — one of only twenty attorneys appointed to the selective committee. During his committee tenure, he authored multiple thought leadership pieces relied on by thousands of attorneys advising companies on Form I-9 and E-Verify compliance and was instrumental in responding to proposed regulatory changes.

• Professional Involvement

Through the AILA liaison committee, John liaises with representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, and the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer on employment verification, Form I-9 requirements, enforcement efforts, and adjudication issues. He is also an active member of the Association of Corporate Counsel, where he has served as Vice-Chair of the Corporate and Securities Law Network. An accomplished speaker and author, John has presented at national conferences including SHRM, AILA, ASHHRA, and HR Florida; his insights have appeared in publications such as the ACC Docket, HR Florida Newswire, and HR Pulse; and he is frequently quoted by outlets including Bloomberg. He will serve as a panelist at AILA’s 2026 Annual Conference, presenting on Form I-9 and E-Verify compliance pitfalls and discrimination liability.

• Experience

John brings a rare 360-degree perspective to worksite compliance. He began his enforcement career as Assistant Chief Counsel in the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor at DHS-ICE in Philadelphia, where he reviewed and litigated Form I-9 violations and worksite enforcement investigations across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Delaware, and served on an interagency Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force alongside Homeland Security Investigations, the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, and the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service. At ICE, he served as team lead for Form I-9 compliance and document fraud litigation, tried removal cases in Immigration Courts nationwide, and argued multiple cases before the Board of Immigration Appeals. He then moved in-house, serving as Senior Director and Associate General Counsel at Vertical Screen, Inc., where he led the design and implementation of electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions and directed the company’s identity verification and fingerprinting businesses. Now at Seyfarth, he counsels employers on employment eligibility verification, ICE audits and Notices of Inspection, and enforcement defense from the firm’s nationally recognized Immigration Compliance & Enforcement practice.

Bruce E. Buchanan, Senior Counsel | Littler Mendelson P.C.

Bruce E. Buchanan is Senior Counsel in Littler’s Nashville office, where he counsels employers on immigration compliance, conducts internal I-9 audits, and represents employers in ICE inspections and audits, Immigrant and Employee Rights (IER)/Department of Justice investigations, E-Verify matters, and employment-based visa work. He also maintains a labor law practice, representing employers before the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division and in collective bargaining. Few practitioners pair this depth in worksite enforcement defense with decades of front-line labor relations experience.

• Education & Credentials

Bruce earned his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1982 and his B.S., magna cum laude, from Florida State University in 1979. He is admitted to practice in Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia, and before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and D.C. Circuits, as well as U.S. District Courts in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Georgia.

• Recognition & Leadership

Bruce has been named to Best Lawyers in America for Employment Law – Management (Tennessee) every year from 2016 through 2026. A prolific author in the field, he co-authored the I-9 and E-Verify Handbook (2017 and 2024 editions) with Greg Siskind and served as editor of the Employer Sanctions chapter of Kurzban’s Immigration Law Sourcebook (2024–2025 edition). He also served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law for more than ten years.

• Professional Involvement

Bruce is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, including its Online Review Course Committee, and formerly served on AILA’s Verification & Documentation Liaison Committee. He belongs to the Tennessee Bar Association’s Immigration Law and Labor & Employment Law sections and to the Associated General Contractors of America – Middle Tennessee. He is a frequent national speaker on immigration compliance and labor law, with recent engagements including “ICE Encounters: Raids, Audits and Warrants” (Littler Webinar, January 2026) and presentations at AILA Annual Conferences on worksite enforcement, I-9 Notices of Inspection, and anti-discrimination issues in verification, alongside regular programs for the Tennessee Hospital Association, PayrollOrg, and AGC chapters.

• Experience

Bruce’s practice spans the full arc of employer immigration compliance — from proactive internal audits and E-Verify counseling through ICE Notices of Inspection, IER investigations, and litigating fines before OCAHO. Before concentrating on immigration, he served as a senior trial specialist for the NLRB for 20 years, counseled clients on union-filed representation petitions, represented employers in collective bargaining, and advised on wage and hour and Family and Medical Leave Act matters. He has extensive experience representing companies in manufacturing, restaurants and hospitality, healthcare, education, staffing, construction, and food processing. His recent commentary on ICE’s 2026 reclassification of I-9 substantive errors and Ohio’s new E-Verify requirements reflects his position at the forefront of today’s worksite enforcement developments.

Greg Siskind, Founding Partner | Siskind Susser, PC

Greg Siskind has been helping immigrants and serving as a leader in the national immigration bar for more than three decades. A founding partner of Siskind Susser, PC, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential and innovative immigration lawyers in the United States — a pioneer of legal technology, a prolific author, and a nationally recognized advocate whose work spans business immigration, healthcare immigration, I-9 compliance, and high-impact federal litigation.

• Education & Credentials

Greg received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1986 and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1990, beginning his practice at age 22. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1990.

• Recognition & Leadership

Greg was named by Who’s Who in Corporate Immigration Law to its list of the ten most distinguished immigration lawyers in the world and by Chambers and Partners as one of the top 25 immigration lawyers in the US. His honors include the 2024 AILA Technology and Innovation Award, the 2022 American Bar Association James E. Keane Award for e-Lawyering, the 2020 AILA Advocacy Award, co-receipt of AILA’s 2022 Litigation Award, recognition as a 2023 Who’s Who Legal Global Elite Thought Leader, inclusion in the National Law Journal’s 2023 Immigration Law Trailblazers, listings in The Best Lawyers in America for Immigration Law and Mid-South Super Lawyers, an AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell rating, and the 2018 IMG Taskforce Roberta Freedman Lifetime Achievement Award. A true innovator, he created visalaw.com in 1994 — the first immigration law firm website in the world — launched the first electronically distributed law firm newsletter the same year, became the first lawyer in the world with a blog in 1998, and in 2016 was among the first lawyers to publish AI-based immigration tools. He was also the first immigration lawyer ever photographed for the cover of the ABA Journal.

• Professional Involvement

Greg has served on the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association since 2010, chaired the IMG Taskforce — the physician immigration bar organization — for more than a decade, founded the Tennessee Bar Association’s immigration section, and currently chairs the International Bar Association’s Immigration and Nationality Law Committee. He is a past council member of the ABA Law Practice Division and chair of its Publications Board, and a member of the Memphis Bar Association. He has authored immigration-related legislation, testified as an expert before the U.S. House of Representatives Immigration Subcommittee, and is regularly interviewed by outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Forbes, and Bloomberg.

• Experience

Greg co-founded Siskind Susser, PC – Immigration Lawyers in 1994, Visalaw Ventures in 2019 — parent company of software firm Visalaw.ai and book publisher Alan House — and IMMpact Litigation in 2020. He is also a founder of Visalaw International, the global alliance of immigration lawyers. The author of seven books and hundreds of articles and book chapters, his titles include the AILA Practice and Procedures Manual (the “AILA Cookbook”), the J-1 Visa Guidebook (published annually by LexisNexis since 1997), The Employer’s Immigration Compliance Desktop Reference (SHRM), The Physician’s Immigration Handbook, Immigration for Startups, and The I-9 and E-Verify Handbook. His practice and thought leadership continue to shape how the immigration bar serves employers, physicians, entrepreneurs, and families nationwide.

SESSION 1 – Responding to ICE’s I-9 Penalty Reclassifications | 2:00pm – 3:00pm

This session examines ICE’s March 2026 reclassification of technical I-9 errors as substantive violations, teaching attorneys to model penalty exposure, assert Virtue Memorandum reliance and APA defenses, structure privileged pre-NOI audits, and respond to Notices of Inspection.

BREAK | 3:00pm – 3:10pm

SESSION 2 – ICE Worksite Raids and New E-Verify Mandates | 3:10pm – 4:10pm

This session equips employer counsel to respond to ICE worksite encounters—distinguishing judicial warrants, administrative warrants, and Notices of Inspection—and details compliance obligations under Ohio’s HB 246 E-Verify mandate within the broader framework of state mandates.