Washington's New Immigrant Worker Protection Act: Compliance Beyond Form I-9

Washington State's new Immigrant Worker Protection Act (IWPA) took effect October 1, 2026, adding employee notice and posting requirements tied to federal Form I-9 inspections. The law reflects a broader shift: immigration compliance increasingly requires employers to navigate both federal rules and state employment laws.

What the Law Requires

The IWPA applies broadly to employers with workers in Washington and imposes obligations when an employer receives notice of a federal Form I-9 inspection and after inspection results arrive.

Among other requirements, employers generally must notify employees within five business days of receiving a Form I-9 Notice of Inspection, provide specified inspection information, maintain workplace postings during the inspection, and notify affected employees within five days of receiving written inspection results. Notice must also go to employees' authorized representatives, including union representatives where applicable.

Washington has published model notices, workplace posters, and compliance guidance. Employers should review and retain these materials before an inspection notice arrives.

Accurate Forms I-9 Are Not Enough

Even employers with strong Form I-9 and, where applicable, E-Verify compliance may face liability for missing the IWPA's notice, posting, or employee communication requirements. The response to an inspection creates its own compliance risk, regardless of whether the Forms I-9 contain errors.

The law authorizes enforcement by the Washington Attorney General and permits private enforcement actions. Clear procedures matter before an inspection begins. Penalties can range from $500 for each “instance” where the employer fails to provide the notice but can reach $1,000 if the violation is found to be willful. Private suits are allowed and can result in actual or statutory damages equivalent to forty times the hourly Washington State minimum wage (currently $17.13/hour).

Update the Worksite Enforcement Playbook

Many response plans for Notices of Inspection, subpoenas, search warrants, and other government demands focus on collecting records, preserving documents, and coordinating with counsel and often  overlook employee communications and state-law obligations. Questions regarding work authorization, government inspections, and immigration-related compliance efforts can create employee anxiety and may generate complaints, requests for information, union inquiries, or other protected activity. Given the notice requirement here, it is even more likely that employee relations issues will arise. Supervisors, managers, and HR personnel should be trained to respond consistently, avoid retaliation concerns, and coordinate communications through appropriate legal, HR, and labor-relations channels.

Assign responsibility now: Who receives an inspection notice and alerts counsel? Who prepares, delivers, and documents employee notices? Who maintains postings and communicates inspection results? Resolve these questions before the three-business-day federal production period begins.

Account for the State-Law Patchwork

Washington is not alone. A growing number of states regulate immigration-related employment practices, including employee notices, workplace postings, anti-retaliation protections, interactions with immigration authorities, and internal audits.

For multistate employers, a response protocol or onboarding practice that works in one jurisdiction may create risk in another. Like wage and hour compliance, immigration compliance increasingly demands attention to a federal framework and a patchwork of state requirements.

Test Your Systems, Not Just Your Forms

Accurate Forms I-9 and compliant electronic systems remain essential. But employers should also test whether their systems and procedures can support evolving state-law obligations.

Can the company quickly identify affected employees by state, generate and track notices, and document required postings and delivery? Are responsibilities clear across HR, legal, labor relations, and operations? These capabilities belong in the compliance review.

What Employers Should Do Now

Washington employers should:

• Work with experienced counsel to understand their particular requirements under the IWPA and any possible exposure;
• Download and affix Washington's model poster(s);
• Assign responsibility for issuing employee notices maintaining required posting(s);
• Train HR, legal, labor relations, and operations teams on the requirements;
• Update worksite enforcement response procedures to include issuing required notices;
• Inquire whether electronic Form I-9 systems and vendors are able to support the notice requirements and if not, design manual workflows and processes that will enable compliance
• Review onboarding, audit, and employee communication practices for state-law compliance;
• Conduct a tabletop/mock inspection exercise involving HR, legal, labor relations, operations, and site management personnel to test the organization's ability to respond to an inspection while satisfying both federal and state-law obligations and
• Ensure that employee email addresses are current to allow for more reliable service of required notices.

The Bigger Picture

The IWPA is more than another notice requirement. It is a reminder that accurate Forms I-9 do not, by themselves, make a compliant program. Employers should review hiring, onboarding, internal audits, enforcement protocols, employee communications, and compliance systems through both a federal and state-law lens.

More recently, employers have seen government enforcement efforts extend beyond traditional Form I-9 compliance. Homeland Security Investigations and other agencies have increasingly focused on a wide range of employment-related fraud and compliance issues, including identity and document fraud, employee-benefit fraud, labor exploitation, unlawful employment practices, and other schemes that may intersect with a company's workforce. Because agencies frequently share information and coordinate investigative efforts, a Form I-9 inspection may serve as the starting point for broader inquiries. Employers should therefore approach immigration compliance as part of a larger risk-management framework rather than a standalone I-9 obligation

For more information, please contact the authors, Dawn Lurie, John Mazzeo, Lauren Parris Watts, or your Seyfarth relationship partner. Seyfarth’s Immigration Compliance & Investigations specialty group is nationally recognized for providing strategic, practical guidance to employers of all sizes, from Fortune 100 companies to emerging businesses, across the full spectrum of immigration compliance matters.

The group advises on Form I-9 and E-Verify compliance; ICE inspections and worksite enforcement; internal immigration compliance assessments and I-9 audits; DOL immigration-related wage and hour investigations; H-1B compliance; DOJ IER and OCAHO anti-discrimination matters, including enforcement actions alleging that U.S. workers were disadvantaged in favor of foreign workers; and deemed export and ITAR compliance. The team combines deep immigration compliance and investigations experience with Seyfarth’s nationally recognized labor, employment, and litigation capabilities. For timely immigration updates, subscribe to Seyfarth’s blog, Through the Immigration Lens.