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With Friday’s agreement to re-open government operations, at least temporarily, E-Verify is once again operational. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has provided the following guidance to employers who participate in the E-Verify program.

 

Creating Cases

Now that E-Verify operations have resumed, employers who participate in E-Verify must create an E-Verify case by February 11, 2019 for each employee hired while E-Verify was not available. Employers must use the hire date from the employee’s Form I-9 when creating the E-Verify case. If the case creation date is more than three days following the date the employee began working for pay, select “Other” from the drop-down list and enter “E-Verify Not Available” as the specific reason.

Tentative Nonconfirmations (TNC)

If an employee received a Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) and notified you of his or her intention to contest the TNC by February 11, 2019, the employer must revise the date by which the employee must contact the Social Security Administration (SSA) or the DHS to begin resolving the TNC. To do this, the employer adds 10 federal business days to the date on the employee’s “Referral Date Confirmation” notice. Federal business days are Monday through Friday and do not include federal holidays.  Employers should give the revised notice to the employee.

Employers may reprint a copy of the employee’s “Referral Date Confirmation” by logging in to E-Verify, selecting the employee’s case and selecting the “Print Confirmation” button. Employers should cross out the old date and insert the new date. Employees have until this new date to contact the SSA or DHS to resolve their cases, as applicable.

For TNC cases that were referred after E-Verify resumed operations, employers do not add days to the time the employee has to contact either SSA or DHS. If the employee decided to contest the TNC when E-Verify was unavailable, the employer should now refer the employee’s case and follow the TNC process.

Federal Contractor Deadlines

During the DHS lapse in appropriations, federal contractors could not enroll in or use E-Verify. DHS advises that any calendar day during which E-Verify was unavailable due to the lapse in appropriations should not count towards the federal contractor deadlines found in the Employment Eligibility Verification Federal Acquisition Regulation.

DHS is warning that E-Verify users may experience longer-than-usual processing times as DHS works through a large volume of accumulated cases. Employers may receive a response that DHS is working on the employer’s submission.