Give your company the gift of an immigration audit this year – it may just keep your company off the government’s naughty list. Here are the top 11 immigration mistakes employers made in 2011:

1. The $5.9 million Error: Failing To Properly Pay H-1B Workers

In March, the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division assessed over $1.7 million in civil money penalties and ordered the payment of over $4.2 million in back wages against Maryland's Prince George's County Public Schools for illegally reducing the wages of 1,044 foreign H-1B teachers when it required the teachers to pay H-1B filing fees.

2. I-9 Document Abuse

Farmland Foods Inc. agreed to pay $290,000 to settle claims that it required non-U.S. citizens to present specific work authorization documents, such as permanent resident cards or employment authorization cards, rather than allowing the employee to choose a document from the list of acceptable documents on the Form I-9.

On December 7, 2011, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the University of California, San Diego Medical Center for allegedly engaging in a pattern and practice of I-9 document abuse by improperly requesting that employees produce more documents than are required by Form I-9 to establish an employee’s identity and employment authorization.