Massachusetts PROTECT Act Requires Employee Notice Within 48 Hours of an ICE Inspection

This alert was originally published on the Seyfarth Immigration blog here. Subscribe to stay informed about immigration compliance and enforcement updates.

Massachusetts has enacted H.B. 5620, or the PROTECT Act, a new law designed to limit local participation in federal civil immigration enforcement, which creates immediate requirements for employers in the event they receive an ICE Notice of Inspection (“NOI”) for Forms I-9 or other employment records by subpoena, warrant or record request. As part of the recently enacted PROTECT Act, employers must provide written notices to all employees within 48 hours of receiving an NOI. The requirement became effective immediately when Governor Healey signed the legislation into law on August 5, 2026.

For certain employers based in Massachusetts, this requirement must be incorporated immediately into existing procedures for responding to an NOI. For national employers, the law adds another state-specific compliance obligation to a process that, only a decade ago, was largely uniform nationwide.

Background

The Commonwealth has framed the PROTECT Act as a public-safety and community-access measure designed to ensure that individuals feel able to access healthcare, education, and the courts. That broader objective helps explain why the legislation extends beyond employment-related notification requirements and addresses immigration enforcement activity in hospitals, schools, childcare centers, and courthouses. The Commonwealth's stated rationale for the law was to preserve access to essential services and public institutions.

What Does the Law Require?

Section 8 of the PROTECT Act amended Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 149, Section 19C to require that, “[e]xcept as required by federal law,” employers must provide written notice to all employees within 48 hours of being served an ICE Notice of Inspection for Forms I-9 or other employment records.

The new statute resembles employee-notification laws previously enacted in California and Illinois, although Massachusetts requires quicker action, providing employers only 48 hours after service of the NOI to notify employees, compared to the 72-hour deadlines used in those states. The PROTECT Act neither prescribes the contents of the notice or a particular delivery method, nor does it require any retention of the notification or proof of delivery. A model form did not accompany passage of the Act, but may follow by regulation. Although the statute does not require employers to retain copies of employee notifications or proof of delivery, we recommend doing so. Maintaining records of the notification provided, when it was delivered, and to whom may help demonstrate compliance in the event of a future inquiry, audit, or dispute regarding whether the employer satisfied the Act's 48-hour notification requirement.

Why This Matters

This new requirement arrives amid heightened federal worksite enforcement activity and creates a new deadline that employers must satisfy almost immediately upon receipt of an ICE NOI. Because Notices of Inspection are often received by front-line personnel, receptionists, managers, or other HR representatives, employers without a clear escalation process may find themselves unexpectedly facing an imminent statutory deadline before their legal counsel’s office even gets involved.

The law may also present practical challenges where an NOI is mailed rather than personally served. Large employers often route government correspondence through mailrooms, shared service centers, third-party administrators, or multiple layers of management before it reaches the personnel responsible for I-9 compliance. As a result, an employer could have significantly fewer than 48 hours to prepare and distribute employee notifications if the NOI is not immediately directed to the appropriate recipients.

The PROTECT Act also leaves several questions unanswered. For example, it does not specify whether notice may be delivered electronically, whether a copy of the NOI must accompany the employee communication, or how employers with interstate workforces should determine which employees must receive notice. Open questions include whether Massachusetts regulators will eventually issue a model notice or additional implementation guidance. California and Illinois have issued such forms and prescribed notice requirements, while Washington recently adopted a more detailed framework that contemplates Attorney General-issued safe-harbor notices and posters. Massachusetts currently provides no comparable guidance, leaving employers to make their own determinations regarding the contents of the notification, how much detail to provide, and whether a copy of the NOI should accompany the notice. Until additional guidance is issued by the Commonwealth, employers should adopt a conservative and well-documented compliance approach.

What Should Employers Do Now?

Employers with Massachusetts operations should start by updating their existing ICE response protocols to account for the new notice requirement.

Employers also should work closely with counsel when developing an employee-notification strategy. Being prepared in advance will significantly ease the burden of responding to an inspection. Employers should therefore determine ahead of time what information will be included in employee notifications, whether copies of the NOI will be distributed, how notices will be delivered, and how compliance will be documented.

Those decisions may vary depending on the employer's workforce, locations, communication methods, and labor relations considerations, making a one-size-fits-all approach impractical for many organizations. Employers with unionized workforces also should consider whether collective bargaining agreements, past practice, or other labor-relations considerations may affect how employee notifications are communicated.

In particular, employers should:

• Ensure that any ICE Notice of Inspection is immediately forwarded to designated HR and legal personnel.
• Develop a written employee-notification template, and a related workflow plan, before any NOI is received.
• Establish a process for distributing notices and documenting delivery.
• Train managers, reception personnel, security staff, HR professionals, and other front-line employees regarding the importance of immediately escalating immigration-related government communications and enforcement activity to designated management and legal contacts.
• Review Form I-9 compliance practices and recordkeeping procedures to reduce risk before an inspection occurs.

Because the statute became effective immediately upon enactment, employers with Massachusetts employees should not wait for further guidance before implementing a notification protocol. Employers should also train HR and onboarding teams on the importance of having a point of contact with employees outside of the workplace.

Impact Extends Beyond Employer Notice Requirements

Employers should keep in mind that the employee-notification requirement is only one piece of the broader PROTECT Act. The legislation also contains provisions addressing immigration enforcement activities at sensitive locations, including public schools, childcare facilities, healthcare facilities, and state courts. Such organizations should consider whether existing policies governing law-enforcement interactions, facility access, record requests, employee training, and escalation procedures remain appropriate in light of the Act. Employers should work with experienced immigration and employment counsel to review existing policies, protocols, and training materials, particularly those developed before enactment of the PROTECT Act, and determine whether updates are necessary.

Employers should also keep a close eye on future guidance from the Commonwealth. The PROTECT Act directs the development of guidance regarding immigration enforcement encounters and organizational responses to those encounters. Additional guidance may help answer some of the implementation questions that remain unanswered and could significantly influence how employers, healthcare providers, schools, and other organizations operationalize compliance obligations going forward. Stay tuned for future alerts as such guidance develops.

Potential Penalties

The PROTECT Act itself does not create a separate penalty provision for the new employee-notification requirement. However, existing penalty provisions in Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 149, Section 19C may still apply. Any person who violates the provisions of the law may be subject to fines ranging from $200 to $500. Because the new provision requires notice to 'each employee,' questions remain regarding how state regulators might calculate penalties in the event of noncompliance.

Accordingly, employers should assume that state enforcement may follow and should treat the new requirement as a mandatory compliance obligation rather than a procedural formality.

The Bottom Line

The Massachusetts PROTECT Act adds a new compliance step to the ICE inspection process, and adds another compliance obligation to existing NOI response protocols for companies operating in multiple jurisdictions. For most employers, the key action item is operational: update existing worksite enforcement and I-9 audit response procedures to include a process for preparing, approving, distributing, and documenting employee notices immediately upon receipt of an ICE Notice of Inspection. Because the statute became effective immediately and provides little implementation guidance, employers are exposed to risk if they wait until an inspection occurs before modifying their workflow and training protocols.

Employers should work proactively with immigration compliance counsel, employment counsel, and internal stakeholders to establish a practical and defensible procedure for handling ICE Notices of Inspection and review current standard operation procedures for immigration-enforcement encounters, including escalation protocols, employee-notification templates, facility-access procedures, and recordkeeping practices that align with existing compliance workflows.

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The authors thank Dan Niklauski* for his assistance with research and preparation of this article.

*Dan is a Case Assistant on Seyfarth’s Immigration Compliance & Enforcement team. Many thanks for his contribution to this article.