A Minnesota-based staffing firm was recently ordered to pay a $227,000 fine for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including false attestations made on I-9 forms. The I-9 procedure for Employer Solutions Staffing Group II LLC, was to have employees present original I-9 documentation to personnel in Texas, then personnel in Minnesota would sign the Form I-9 Section 2 attestation after reviewing copies of the employees’ documents and without seeing the employees whose documents they were examining. In her ruling, the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) stated that it was impossible for personnel in Minnesota to determine whether I-9 documents reasonably appeared to relate to an employee in Texas without actually seeing the employee in person.  Employer Solutions’ argued that knowledge of a principal can be imputed to an agent; however, the ALJ rejected this argument stating that no law authorizes the principal or the agent to attest under oath that he or she personally performed actions they did not perform. The ALJ sustained the $935 penalty for each of the 242 false attestations, as well as a $981 penalty for failure to present a Form I-9 for one employee.