Huffines Finds Up to 20 Years of I-9 Failures in Comptroller’s Office

Comptroller Don Huffines says a review of his own agency found that it failed, for as long as 20 years, to keep proper records of the federal forms employers use to confirm that new hires may legally work in the United States. The agency faces “approximately $5 million or more in federal civil penalties, based on a preliminary internal assessment,” his office said Friday in a news release, and it “will not contest legitimate penalties.”

Huffines used the finding to ask President Donald Trump and federal immigration authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to audit every state and local government entity in Texas. “I invite President Trump and ICE to review the employment eligibility of every government employee in Texas,” he said. “The state of Texas needs to pay its fines for violating federal I-9 requirements, just like every business has to. And every government entity out of compliance should be audited and pay up too.”

Form I-9 is the federal record of the identity and work authorization of each person hired in the United States, as the release describes it. The comptroller’s release says “the full scope is still being determined.” It does not say how many records were reviewed or how many were missing or defective, and it names no other agency with the same problem.

Huffines ordered a performance review of the whole agency when he took office in August, after Gov. Greg Abbott appointed him in July. The office has hired outside lawyers to investigate, and the release says the fixes are already underway. “If 90 days of auditing found this in one agency, Texans should ask what is sitting in all the others,” Huffines said. He also said “the early findings suggest people inside government knew about these failures and hid them,” without naming anyone or describing the evidence.

A separate Texas law has required every state agency since 2015 to use E-Verify, the federal online system that checks new employees’ work eligibility. The release does not say whether the comptroller’s office complied with that law or whether E-Verify is part of the review.

No public response from ICE or the Department of Homeland Security had been reported by Saturday, and the release mentions no letter to either. Huffines leaves office in January. State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt defeated him on Tuesday and will inherit both the agency’s investigation and whatever penalties Washington assesses.