HSI Showed Up at My Workplace - What Do They Want
The badges came out first. Then the questions started. Federal agents standing in your lobby, asking to speak with management, requesting access to your files. Your employees are watching. Your stomach is dropping. Everything you thought about your business, your compliance, your careful attention to paperwork - it feels like it means nothing now.
They're not here about I-9 paperwork.
That's the first thing you need to understand, and it changes everything. Homeland Security Investigations - HSI - is not an administrative agency checking forms. HSI is a federal criminal investigation agency. The second-largest in the United States, right behind the FBI. These agents investigate human trafficking, money laundering, document fraud, weapons smuggling, and transnational crime. If they've shown up at your workplace, someone has already decided you're worth investigating. And everything you say from this moment forward becomes evidence.
Welcome to Spodek Law Group. We handle federal criminal defense when HSI comes knocking. If agents have visited your workplace, if you've received a Notice of Inspection, or if you're worried about what's coming next - this article explains exactly what you're facing and what options you have to protect yourself.
HSI Isn't Who You Think They Are
Most people who hear "ICE" think immigration enforcement. Deportations. Border patrol. That's a mistake that can cost you everything.
ICE actualy has two completely separate components, and they do very differant things. ERO - Enforcement and Removal Operations - handles civil immigration enforcement. Deportations, detention, administrative arrests. That's what most people picture when they hear ICE.
HSI is something else entirely.
Homeland Security Investigations is a federal criminal investigation agency with aproximately 6,000 special agents. Thats the second-largest investigative force in the country after the FBI. These aren't agents processing paperwork. There investigators building federal criminal cases.
What does HSI investigate? Look at this list:
- Drug cartels and narcotics trafficking
- Money laundering syndicates
- Human trafficking organizations
- Child exploitation networks
- Document fraud schemes
- Weapons smuggling operations
- Sanctions violations
In 2024 alone, HSI made 2,545 arrests related to human trafficking. They supported 914 federal indictments. They achieved 405 criminal convictions. They initiated 1,686 criminal investigations into sex trafficking and forced labor. These are federal crimes carrying 10, 20, 30-year prison sentences.
So when HSI shows up at your workplace, they're not there to check if your I-9 forms have the right signatures. There investigating potential federal crimes. The friendly questions, the requests to "just take a look around," the assurances that this is routine - it's not routine. Its an investigation.
What They're Actually Looking For
The Notice of Inspection looks administrative. Its printed on official letterhead. It requests documents within three business days. It feels like compliance paperwork - annoying but managable.
Don't be fooled.
An I-9 audit starts as a civil matter. But HSI can refer your case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal prosecution at any time. Same agents. Same investigation. But suddenly your looking at federal charges that carry real prison time.
The potential criminal charges include:
- Harboring undocumented immigrants (8 U.S.C. § 1324) - 5 to 10 years federal prison
- Document fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1546) - 10 to 25 years federal prison
- Conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371) - 5 years federal prison
And thats before you consider the civil fines that can bankrupt a business even without criminal charges. The fine structure that DHS announced in June 2024 is staggering:
- I-9 paperwork violations: $281 to $2,789 per form
- Knowingly hiring unauthorized workers (first offense): $698 to $5,579 per violation
- Second offense: $5,579 to $13,946 per violation
- Third or more offenses: $8,369 to $27,894 per violation
Do the math. A business with 50 employees and systemic violations could face over $1.4 million in civil fines. Before anyone goes to prison. Before any criminal charges are even filed. Companies have shut down not becuase of convictions but becuase of fines, legal fees, and the reputational damage of an HSI investigation.
Heres the part that should scare you. In September 2025, HSI conducted the largest single-site workplace raid in Department of Homeland Security history. A Hyundai battery plant in Georgia. 475 people arrested in a single day.
But here's the irony that reveals how this system actually works: most of those 475 people were detained on civil immigration grounds, not criminal charges. HSI used its criminal investigation authority to conduct an enforcement action that resulted in administrative, not criminal, outcomes for most people involved. The criminal investigation framework gave them access. What happened after - who got charged criminally versus who faced deportation - depended on what HSI found once they were inside.
Your Rights in the First 72 Hours
The first thing you need to understand when HSI shows up: what kind of warrant are they showing you?
This is the distinction that changes everything, and most people dont know it exists.
An administrative warrant - Form I-200 or Form I-205 - does NOT give HSI agents authority to enter non-public areas of your workplace without your consent. Look at the top of the document. If it says "Department of Homeland Security" at the top, its an administrative warrant. Its not signed by a judge. It is not a judicial search warrant.
Only a judicial warrant - signed by a federal judge, issued by a court - authorizes agents to search your premises without your consent.
You can accept the warrant but NOT consent to the search. This matters legally. If you do not consent, the search may proceed if they have proper authority, but you preserve your right to challenge it later if grounds exist. The moment you say "yes, come on in, look at whatever you want," you've waived protections you might desperatley need later.
Now about that Notice of Inspection.
When HSI serves a Notice of Inspection, you have exactly three business days to produce the requested I-9 forms and supporting documents. Those three days aren't just a deadline. There your leverage.
What you provide during that window - and how you respond - shapes the entire investigation. Once you hand over documents, you cant take them back. Once you make statements, you cant unspeak them. The decisions you make in those 72 hours determine whether you're cooperating into a civil settlement or cooperating yourself into federal charges.
This is the moment where you either protect yourself or create evidence against yourself. These three days are not about compliance. They are about strategy.
What to Do Right Now
The single most important rule:
"I am invoking my right to remain silent and I want to speak with an attorney."
Say that. Say exactly that. Then stop talking.
The moment you start explaining, clarifying, providing context - you're creating testimony. You're being helpful, you're trying to show you have nothing to hide, you're answering questions because that's what cooperative, innocent people do. But cooperation without counsel is exactly how people incriminate themselves. Every word becomes potential evidence. Every "explanation" becomes a statement that can be used against you.
The agents seem friendly. Professional. Cooperative. Their not on your side. They are building a case. The questions that feel routine - "How many employees do you have? When did you hire this person? Who handles your I-9s?" - are investigative questions with legal consequences.
If HSI has shown up at your workplace, here's what you do immediately:
- Do not consent to searches beyond what a judicial warrant authorizes
- Do not destroy any documents - document destruction is its own federal crime
- Do not delete files or move evidence - obstruction of justice can be worse then whatever there originally investigating
- Do not discuss the investigation with employees or others who may be involved
- Contact a federal criminal defense attorney immediately
Todd Spodek has handled HSI investigations. He understands the difference between an administrative I-9 audit where civil resolution may be possible, and a criminal investigation where federal defense is the priority. The earlier you have counsel, the more leverage exists.
When Your Ready to Talk
If HSI has shown up at your workplace - or if you're worried they might - Spodek Law Group can help you understand where you stand and what options exist.
The consultation is free. Theirs no obligation.
What you'll get is an honest assessment. Is this an administrative audit or a criminal investigation? What kind of warrant did they show? What have you already said or provided? What are the realistic outcomes based on how these cases actually play out - not best-case fantasies, but actual possibilities?
Call us at 212-300-5196. HSI investigations move fast once they start. The window between when agents first show up and when decisions get made is narrow. What you do in that window - what you say, what you provide, who you call - shapes everything that comes after.
Don't wait until theres an indictment to wonder what you should have done differently.
Were here when you need us.
