Immigration: check your employees or pay the price

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The Department of Immigration and Citizenship has sent out a stark warning of the significant risks faced by employers that fail to check the immigration status of their prospective employees.

The move follows the latest sting operation by compliance officers from the DIAC, in which 23 illegal workers were caught at a construction site at Homebush Bay in Sydney’s west.

Twenty of the 23 illegal workers were transferred to the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for processing, ahead of their removal from Australia at the earliest opportunity.

“It is the responsibility of employers to ensure that non-Australian workers they hire hold a visa with valid work rights,” said a DIAC spokesman.

“Illegal workers in Australia will not be tolerated and the department actively investigates community reports and takes swift action to apprehend non-citizens without work rights.”

The penalties for failing to comply with immigration legislation can run into thousands of dollars, with jail time also being dished out to employers in some cases.

Employers convicted under Commonwealth legislation of having illegal workers face fines of up to $13,200 and two years’ imprisonment, while companies face fines of up to $66,000 per illegal worker.

Organisations that wish to check the immigration status of prospective employees (with their consent) can do so for free at the DIAC Visa Entitlement Verification Online service.

Latest comments

Pamela on 18 Jan 2012 02:02 PM

Users of the Visa Entitlement Verification Online system will be aware that a major shortcoming with the system is that it does not correlate names. This is a significant risk as numerous individuals could use the passport details including date of birth of one bonafide passport but give the employer thier own name (to which the employer will make payments to) and the VEVO system would return a positive result with no regard to the name being incorrect. It is all well and good for DIAC to criticize employers as they have in this article but they must also acknowledge the shortcomings in the system that it provides them with for conducting visa checks.

mark on 18 Jan 2012 03:34 PM

I don't see the logic of your argument. If an employee shows the employer their passport, it will have their photo so they can identify them and other personal details. In many cases pasports have the visa sticker with work conditions on them, although this doesn't always happen now. When I got my PR I had to ask for a new visa sticker to be put in my passport so if I changed jobs employers can immediately see my visa status.

Pamela on 19 Jan 2012 10:13 AM

My point is that the free online service that DIAC provides for employers to independantly verify a prospective employees visa and work entitlements has a huge gaping hole in it. Whilst in many cases employers may be comfortable relying soley on sighting a passport (we would not be), it is a risk which increases depending on the origin and condition of the passport. I am also in Australia as a permanent resident and whilst I hold a state of the art passport which may not be easily faked, the same cannot be said of all passports and whilst frontline staff can be given some guidance on what to look out for when checking passports, they could never be expected to be experts.