I-9 Compliance for Florida Restaurants: What's Changed

ICE issued 2,540 Notices of Inspection in the first quarter of 2025. In all of FY 2024, it issued about 264. That's a jump from roughly 22 per month to 847 per month.

Phase 2 began in July and added 2,738 more. The 2025 total passed 5,200 before the year was out. For Florida restaurants, the enforcement increase has already landed, and NOIs arrive without warning.

Florida's alcohol regulator is now an immigration partner

In April 2025, the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (ABT) signed a 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with ICE. Under the agreement, ABT's 106 sworn officers (not its civilian inspectors) gained federal authority to perform immigration enforcement functions. By January 2026, ABT had logged 375 shifts and 2,894 hours under the agreement [source: DBPR press release, Jan 7, 2026].

Governor DeSantis described ABT as operating in "target-rich environments during their routine inspection and investigative duties."

No one has publicly documented a case where a routine alcohol compliance visit triggered an immigration check. The legal authority for sworn ABT officers exists under the agreement, but how and whether it gets used during routine visits remains an open question.

The federal money behind this

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted July 4, 2025, allocated $8 billion for ICE personnel. The hiring plan: 2,500 new positions in FY 2025, then 1,875 per year through FY 2029, for a total of 10,000. ICE reported doubling its workforce from 10,000 to 22,000 officers and agents during 2025.

Separately, an ICE-IRS memorandum gave the agency access to 1.28 million employer tax records.

Hospitality is a named target

On June 17, 2025, Reuters reported that DHS told staff raids on hotels and restaurants should continue. A brief internal pause (a June 12 email) was reversed within days. A DHS spokesperson said: "There is no safe harbor, whether it be a church or a courthouse or a worksite."

Census data shows 65% of Miami hotel workers are foreign-born. The sector's workforce profile makes it a focus for enforcement, and federal officials have said so openly.

Florida has already seen large-scale actions. In May 2025, a Tampa worksite operation led to 33 arrests. A Tallahassee raid the same month resulted in more than 100 arrests. Two Jacksonville restaurant cases ended in a fine and a guilty plea for harboring, respectively. These were construction and mixed-sector operations, but the Jacksonville cases hit restaurants directly.

E-Verify and the I-9 form deadline

SB 1718 (codified at F.S. 448.095) makes E-Verify mandatory for employers with 25 or more employees. You have three business days after a new hire's start date to run the verification. Records must be retained for three years. The penalty for non-compliance is license suspension, and the state has the authority to act on it.

There's also a form transition. The January 2025 edition of the I-9 replaces the August 2023 edition on July 31, 2026. After that date, any new hire must be completed on the current edition. Existing I-9s completed on the old form for current employees can stay on file.

Where audits find failures

Immigration compliance counsel working on Florida NOI responses report the same recurring gaps: missing or incomplete I-9s, Section 2 timeliness failures, mixed form editions in active files, and E-Verify queries run outside the three-day window. For employers at 25 or more under F.S. 448.095, inconsistent E-Verify use is grounds for state licence suspension independent of any ICE action.

The money has been appropriated, the officers have been hired, and audits are running at roughly 40 times the monthly pace of FY 2024.