This bill creates a new chapter in Title 49 RCW called the "immigrant worker protection act." It requires the Washington State Attorney General to develop and publish by September 1, 2026, a poster, a model notice, and guidance in English and the state's five most commonly used non-English languages, and to conduct outreach to businesses and communities through October 1, 2027. Employers must post the Attorney General's poster where worker notices are customarily posted, and within 72 hours of receiving a federal agency notice of an inspection of I-9 forms and related worker records must provide written notice to each worker and the worker's authorized representative, including a copy of the federal notice and specified information in English and the five languages. Within 72 hours of receiving written inspection results, employers must provide affected workers and their authorized representatives with a copy of the results, a written notice of obligations and identified deficiencies in the language most regularly used between employer and worker, and information about correction timelines and representation rights. The bill defines terms such as affected worker, employer, federal agency, form I-9, worker, worker records, and worker's authorized representative, and states that employers are not required to perform I-9 self-audits (any self-audit must comply with listed federal, state, and local antidiscrimination and antiretaliation laws and collective bargaining agreements). The bill creates new procedural protections and remedies. It makes it unlawful for employers to interfere with or retaliate against workers for exercising rights under the chapter and defines "adverse action" to include a range of harms such as withholding pay or benefits, termination, demotion, reduced hours or pay, schedule changes, and threats tied to immigration status. The Attorney General may investigate alleged violations, issue civil investigative demands, resolve matters by conference and conciliation, and sue to enjoin violations and recover actual and statutory damages, equitable relief, and fees. Personal information in complaints and investigations is made confidential under the public records law. For failures to provide required notices, courts must order employers to pay statutory damages of $1,000 per failure to the Attorney General (doubled if willful), with possible waiver or reduction if the violation was inadvertent, caused no actual harm, and was promptly corrected in good faith. The act also creates a private right of action in superior court for workers, former workers, injured persons, or organizations whose membership includes such persons, allowing injunctions, recovery of actual damages or statutory damages set at 80 times the hourly Washington minimum wage per plaintiff per violation if larger than actual damages, and attorneys' fees and costs. Sections 4 through 10 of the chapter take effect October 1, 2026. The bill preserves employer obligations under E-Verify memoranda of understanding and federal verification law, includes a severability clause, and preserves the Department of Labor and Industries' authority. Some details are missing from the provided text: the specific chapter number added to Title 49 is not given, the five most commonly used non-English languages are not identified, the statewide immigrant and refugee rights organization to be approved by the Attorney General is not named, the remainder of Section 7 was truncated, and any additional penalties or effective dates that may be referenced in the bill title are not included in the extracted facts.

If enacted, employers in Washington will have immediate new, specific duties when a federal I-9 inspection happens: they must post an attorney general–prepared poster where worker notices go, and within 72 hours of being told an inspection is happening and again within 72 hours after receiving inspection results they must notify each affected worker (and any union representative) in English and the employer’s common non‑English language, using hand delivery, verified mail, verified email, or verifiable text. The attorney general must produce the poster, model notice, and guidance by September 1, 2026 and run outreach through October 1, 2027; the attorney general can investigate violations, issue document demands, sue for relief, and collect statutory penalties of $1,000 per missed notice (doubled if willful), while workers and organizations can bring private lawsuits that may recover large per‑violation statutory damages (calculated as 80 times the hourly minimum wage when that exceeds actual damages). Employers also face clear anti‑retaliation rules covering pay, hours, promotions, and other adverse actions. The practical effect is that employers will likely need to add routine posting, multilingual communications, proof‑of‑delivery tracking, and legal review to their compliance steps, increasing administrative costs and creating exposure to government enforcement and private lawsuits if notice or timing rules are not followed; workers gain stronger procedural protections and private enforcement options. The attorney general’s outreach and materials shift some burden for worker information to the state, but the bill does not specify funding for that work, and key details are missing here (the exact five non‑English languages, the new chapter number, the statewide organization to be named, and some text portions referenced in later sections), so operational questions about implementation and some penalty mechanics remain uncertain.