September 4, 2009

Plaintiffs file Emergency Motion in Federal Contractor E-Verify Litigation

After a federal district court ruled in favor of the Defendants in the case of Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. v. Napolitano on August 26, 2009 and green-lighted the government’s final rule that would require federal contractors to use E-Verify beginning September 8, 2009, the Plaintiffs have filed an emergency motion to enjoin the enforcement of the rule pending their appeal of the case to the Fourth Circuit. For details on the Court’s decision and what it means for federal contractors, please see our August 2009 GT Alert.

In its Emergency Motion for an Injunction Pending Appeal, Plaintiffs make several arguments to halt the enforcement of the rule including that a failure to grant the injunction will cause irreparable harm to the Plaintiffs by requiring federal contractors to take costly actions to comply, including enrolling in E-Verify, re-verifying the employment eligibility of the existing workforce and modifying existing indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to include the E-Verify contract clause upon determining the meeting of certain criteria.

The Department of Homeland Security has stated that it fully expects the regulation to be implemented on September 8th as scheduled.