Over the last two months, immigration law firms and organizations have been inundated with calls and requests for help from individuals and employers, Inland Northwest attorneys say. 

Hector Quiroga, co-founder at Quiroga Law Office PLLC, says the Spokane Valley-based firm has been flooded with nonstop calls, as many as 150 per hour. 

“We’re definitely overwhelmed,” Quiroga says. “There is a lot of frenzy; we’re doing our best to keep up.” 

Quiroga says the calls include new clients, but also clients who had cases they weren’t readily pursuing but have now decided to renew. They also involve individuals who had a previous consultation with him and were now ready to move forward with their cases, and clients from years back who had been detained previously or had an expired work permit they wanted to renew. 

The firm, which Quiroga says has prioritized existing clients before attending to newer cases has also been getting calls from employers who want to know what they can do to petition or help their employees. 

Alycia Moss, a partner at the Coeur d’Alene offices of Hawley Troxell Ennis & Hawley LLP and member of the firm’s immigration practice group, says she’s noticed the rise of calls, inquiries, and retaining of representation in two main categories: Form I-9 audits and compliance for employers and deportation defense. 

I-9 compliance refers to the Employment Eligibility Verification form employers use to verify new hires' identity and employment eligibility. Moss says employers are largely worried about compliance with I-9 verification, as many employers she has spoken to have never been handed a notice of inspection before. 

“Some people who do employ undocumented workers, they’re worried about liability, and just most employers have never experienced it before,” Moss says. “Many employers don’t even know how to do an I-9 correctly and some employers don’t even know they need an I-9 for their employees.” 

Moss says that every employer is required to verify the identity and work authorization of all their employees. This is usually done through a paper form while some employers use E-Verify, a web-based system that allows employers to verify their employees electronically. 

These notices are different than the documentation that federal agents present in the event of workplace raids, Moss clarifies. 

Homeland Security Investigations, under the Department of Homeland Security, is tasked with conducting investigations and audits of those I-9 forms. When these agents target employers, there’s usually a reason that immigration lawyers aren't always privy to, she says. 

“They can serve a notice of inspection … and the employer has three days to provide all the original I-9s,” Moss says. “A lot of times they are served a subpoena for additional supporting documents.” 

The forms are then reviewed for violations, such as technical errors in which the forms were completed incorrectly, violations in which the employer doesn't have I-9s for their employees, and more substantive violations in which they’ve employed people without proper documentation. Penalties can range from a few hundred dollars per violation to a few thousand dollars per violation.

Moss says she is seeing a rise in notice of inspections generally in the hospitality industry and the trades sectors, such as construction and landscaping. 

The way to mitigate fines is to make sure to complete I-9s, Moss says. If an employer already has those documents, she suggests they conduct an audit as there are legal ways to correct I-9 forms. 

“That may put someone in a position where they may need to terminate people if they can’t prove they have authorization to work,” Moss says. “And that’s terrible in this labor market. I get it. My biggest complaint from my employers is they can’t hire enough people they need, and quality people.”  

The second type of call Moss is receiving is inquiries regarding a spectrum of deportation issues, including deportation defense, detention, enforcement, and targeted enforcement of individuals who may be in the U.S. without documentation or are in a state of legal process. 

Moss says she’s had clients with administratively closed court cases that have been reopened and placed back on the judicial calendar and generally seen an increase of individuals being detained.

Moss cites the Laken Riley Act, which was signed into law on Jan. 29, as an example of a new law that more easily enables federal officials to detain a wider swath of individuals. The law requires federal officials to detain any migrant arrested or charged with an array of crimes from petty theft to murder.

“The Laken Riley Act has made petty theft a mandatory detention type of crime where it wasn’t before,” Moss says. 

Individuals who are picked up for detention are transferred to the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center on the west side of Washington, Moss says. In those cases, she refers people to attorneys in Seattle and Tacoma who can more easily physically go to the detention center to meet with clients.

Moss adds that it’s important for employers to be well informed on how to prepare or defend against a notice of inspection, as well as understand how to prepare in the event of a workplace raid. Additionally, she says it’s good for employers to know if one of their employees is being specifically targeted as it could impact the rest of the workforce and the company. 

Federal officials have publically stated that federal agents who target one employee at a place of business would also take “collaterals” or other people caught in the crossfire, Moss says. 

Moss says she advises employers to contact their congressperson if something is happening that they do not like. 

“Only Congress can make permanent change, and I advise employers to please contact their congressperson and tell them what’s working and what’s not working in the immigration system for their business and ask them to do something,” she says. 

Samuel Smith, an attorney for Spokane-based Manzanita House and director of immigrant legal aid, says the organization is seeing a growing number of people who are seeking assistance, as well as increased amounts of immigration enforcement.

“Even before the increase in requests came through, we were dealing with capacity issues,” Smith says. “And for individuals who are facing immigration enforcement, we are seeing those needs skyrocket.” 

One of the organization’s biggest challenges is balancing the increased request for assistance with the already high workload, especially with more complex cases, he says. For example, the organization is careful to take on too many cases in which an individual has been detained and held in Tacoma because phone communication is not a reliable way to stay in contact with clients. 

“We want to make sure that if we are stepping into these cases, we have the time and effort to be able to do it well,” he says. 

Manzanita House, an organization that focuses on family-based immigration and humanitarian law, has also received an increase in requests from clients to accompany them to physical check-ins at the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, located in Spokane’s North Bank neighborhood.  

Individuals, such as those paroled through the Biden Administration’s parole programs, are given regular check-ins with federal agents, Smith says. The check-ins can be done in person or through a cell phone application in which the person can take a selfie, and the application will geotag their location. Recently, Smith has noticed an increase in requests for in-person check-ins for people who have never been asked to check in, he says. 

“We’ve gone to multiple, and they’ve gone very smooth where they’re merely confirming location and contact information and that’s it,” Smith says. “Though there is an increased risk of being detained at those check-ins.” 

Smith says that executive orders targeting a freeze on federally funded programs have also impacted the work of the organization.  

An attorney at the organization who is a fellow through the Immigrant Justice Corps working on the Unaccompanied Children Program had to abruptly stop work following the federal directives, he says. 

“Thankfully, that stop-work order was rescinded a couple of days later,” Smith says. “But it just indicates the level of uncertainty where that could really happen at any time, and that’s really the communication we’re hearing: We’re able to continue that work now, but that does not mean the same couldn’t happen again.”