Harvard turns over employee work authorization forms to Homeland Security

Harvard will comply with a request by the federal government to turn over employee work authorization forms. The school said in a Tuesday staff email that it will hand over the I-9 forms of current and recent employees to the Department of Homeland Security.

Harvard, the state's fifth largest employer, employs nearly 20,000 people.

Homeland Security issued a "notice of inspection" demanding the I-9s on July 8. The federal document verifies an employee’s identity and eligibility to work in the United States. It includes an employee's name, address and social security number, as well as an attestation of citizenship or immigration status.

Federal regulations entitle DHS to request I-9 forms from employers. But according to immigration attorney Dan Berger, such inspections are “unusual.”

“I've been practicing immigration for over 25 years and I've probably had three audits over that time,” he said.

This inspection is the latest in a series of administrative hoops the federal government has required the Cambridge university jump through this year. The administration has separately demanded Harvard turn over a wide range of documentation about its international students, including video footage of protests and disciplinary records.

Harvard, in the Tuesday staff email obtained by WBUR, requested that DHS confirm that the I-9 records — once turned over — be "securely maintained.” The school said it will not at this time share the I-9s of student employees, saying it’s “evaluating the government’s position on whether the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act permits disclosure of those records.”

Harvard History Professor Kirsten Weld said she views the I-9 inspection as another attempt by the White House to pressure the university into striking a deal with the government to maintain federal funding.

“You can read it as part of a broader effort to wear the university down,” she said. "To basically kind of bludgeon and exhaust it into submission by making the cost of not doing a 'deal' just too much to bear.”

The two sides reportedly have been in negotiations to settle the status of the school’s federal research funding. The government has slashed roughly $2.5 billion in grants and contracts, alleging the school failed to address antisemitism and curb diversity efforts on campus. Harvard sued, and a ruling is pending from a federal judge.

Harvard has recently signaled a willingness to pay as much as $500 million to settle with the White House, according to reports from the New York Times and Associated Press.

The federal demand for employment forms could also spike fear for non-citizens who work at Harvard, Weld said.

“What I think [the inspection] seeks to accomplish is making an employment relationship to Harvard University feel scary,” she said. “And that is going to have a kind of frightening and chilling effect across the different classifications of workers on this campus, from dining hall workers to faculty to student employees.”

That includes employees on Temporary Protected Status, a designation that allows foreign nationals from certain countries with unsafe conditions — such as a natural disaster or armed conflict — to remain in the United States without the threat of deportation. A 2021 report from the Harvard Temporary Status Coalition estimated that 200 of the university's employees were working under that status, according to The Harvard Crimson.

When asked why it requested the records, Homeland Security sent WBUR a copy of a statement department Secretary Kristi Noem posted on Facebook when she first issued the request.

“If Harvard won’t defend the interests of its students, then we will,” Noem said. “We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way.”

There is no regularly published database that documents the total number of I-9 inspections conducted each year. Lawyers have said they saw a surge in I-9 inspections during President Trump's first term and expect a similar rise now. 

The Department of Homeland Security increased fines in January for employers out of compliance with I-9 regulations. That means if a clerical error is discovered in Harvard's paperwork, the university could be on the hook for nearly $3,000 per violation.

Harvard President Alan Garber said he anticipates a loss of up to $1 billion annually due to the combined impact of the Trump administration's actions.