January 13, 2009

100,000 Employers Use E-Verify Program

On January 8, 2009, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that more than 100,000 employers have signed up to use E-Verify to check the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees. Currently, approximately 96.1 % of qualified employees are cleared automatically and 99.6 % of work authorized employees are verified without having to take any type of corrective action.

Federal contractors and subcontractors can delay implementation of the use of the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system to check that new hires are eligible to work in the U.S. The final rule, issued pursuant to an Executive Order which was to have become effective on January 15, 2009 and would have required contractors to use E-Verify, and to electronically re-verify employees working on existing contracts, has been suspended until February 20, 2009.

All employers are required to complete Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) with respect to newly hired employees to verify their identity and authorization to work in the United States. The new version of the I-9 form will take effect on February 2, 2009 and contains a few modifications to the current form. In an effort to reduce fraud and improve the integrity of the employment verification process, the new regulations and I-9 form now require that any document presented for I-9 purposes be valid and expired.

Please consult with your GT attorney for further information.