On June 15, 2012, the Obama Administration announced that certain individuals who came to the United States as children, and met certain criteria, would be eligible for temporary resident status through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The most important provision was that deferred action allowed these individuals to obtain work authorization, including a valid Social Security number and, in many states, a driver’s license. This means many individuals who were once working under a different name with invalid Social Security numbers now have a valid number. What should a company do when one such employee, “Juan,” comes in to work one day and provides a new social security card and driver’s license indicating his name is actually “Carlos?”
My firm has developed a protocol to help our clients deal with these types of situations. We advise our clients to follow a four-step process, which we call the NCIS protocol — short for New Confessed Identity Scenarios. We developed this protocol to provide our clients a simple, responsive and compliant way to address this sensitive scenario.