Texas Comptroller Don Huffines announced1 that a review of his agency has uncovered apparent systemic failures in federal employment verification requirements in a preliminary internal estimate that could leave taxpayers facing approximately $5 million or more in civil penalties.
The November 6th announcement describes preliminary findings involving the completion, verification, and retention of Form I-9 hiring records. The problems may stretch back as far as 20 years. The full scope remains under investigation, and the estimated exposure comes from an internal assessment. The release does not report that federal authorities have assessed those penalties.
Employers must fill out and keep Form I-9 to show that every new hire is authorized to work in the United States.2 Federal guidance treats failure to follow I-9 requirements and knowingly employing unauthorized workers as distinct violations.
Paperwork failures and knowingly hiring unauthorized workers are different violations. Still, an agency that handles the state’s money should be able to keep basic hiring records. Huffines ordered a comprehensive performance review3 of the office shortly after taking office back in August and has moved quickly to surface the issue. If the preliminary assessment holds, taxpayers could bear the cost of longstanding failures within an agency they already pay for.
The office has retained independent outside legal counsel to conduct a full investigation and says it will not contest legitimate penalties. Remediation is already underway through Huffines’ Taxpayer First Project. The broader performance review covers agency operations, including business processes, contracts, and administrative structure.
“If 90 days of auditing found this in one agency, Texans should ask what is sitting in all the others,” Huffines said. He has called on President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to audit every state and local government entity in Texas and review government employees’ employment eligibility.
While the request has been submitted, the Comptroller’s release does not announce an approved or ongoing statewide federal audit as of yet.
Government entities should face the same compliance standards as private businesses. Huffines’ decision to identify the problem in his own agency, engage outside counsel, decline to contest legitimate penalties, and begin remediation sets a constructive example of accountability.
With Democrat Sarah Eckhardt set to take office as Comptroller in January, and other Democrat statewide officials assuming power after the November general election, it is less likely that these I-9 failures and related audits will be pursued with the same intensity, if at all. The new, incoming Democrat leadership may deprioritize the issue, slow the investigation, or limit public disclosure of findings. And that, of course, raises the risk that these potentially longstanding problems could remain unaddressed while taxpayers continue to pay the consequences.
The investigation should establish how these failures persisted, who was responsible for compliance, and whether warnings, if any, went unaddressed. Taxpayers should demand that the Comptroller’s office, particularly incoming Comptroller Eckhardt, publish the investigation’s findings, document corrective measures, and demonstrate that its hiring records meet federal requirements.
And any broader audit should bring that same transparency to every government employer it examines.
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- https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20261106-texas-comptroller-don-huffines-uncovers-decades-of-i-9-failures-calls-on-president-trump-to-send-ice-into-every-government-agency-in-texas-1793998523438 ↩︎
- https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-resources/statutes-and-regulations ↩︎
- https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/20260804-huffines-announces-performance-review-of-comptrollers-office-1785876225807 ↩︎
