By: Dawn Lurie
Seyfarth Synopsis: The government has temporarily been reopened and E-Verify is back in business, at least until February 15th. The President and Congress have until that time to provide long term funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Our friends over at the Verification Division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) have been very busy preparing for the onslaught of E-Verify activity that began early this morning, after the very long 35-day government shutdown. USCIS issued E-Verify guidance yesterday, January 28, 2019, outlining what employers need to do and when they need to do it. We expect additional guidance to be posted today in an effort to clarify some of the confusion caused by the government’s initial directives.
With all of those E-Verify queries sitting in cyberspace or on your desk, let’s start with the basics. Be warned – if you sleep easily at night without thoughts of E-Verify invading your dreams, this blog post is likely not for you.
Hopefully, during the 35 day shutdown you were able to follow the advice provided in Seyfarth’s previous blog Government Shutdown = E-Verify Shutdown. If so, your company has been stockpiling E-Verify queries while completing and retaining Forms I-9 in the requisite time frames. For those companies using electronic I-9 providers, your vendor should have been doing the same through their systems. Your vendor should also now be providing guidance on how to process those E-Verify queries queued up in their system, and should also be addressing the likely delays, backlogs and TNC related issues. Continue Reading E-Verify Thawed: The Government Reopens but Guidance is Messy