E-Verify to Go Dark This Weekend

The federal government’s electronic employment verification system will be unavailable this weekend due to system upgrades.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that E-Verify will be shut down from midnight March 23 to 8 a.m. March 26 Eastern Time. E-Verify users are encouraged to complete and close any open cases prior to the system shutdown.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration will not be able to assist employees with case resolution issues during the outage. myE-Verify, the system’s resource portal for workers, will also be unavailable.

“During the suspension, employers will not be able to access their E-Verify accounts and employees will be unable to resolve E-Verify tentative nonconfirmations,” said Michael H. Neifach, an attorney in the Wahington, D.C., regional office of Jackson Lewis. “The E-Verify outage does not change any Form I-9 requirements,” he added. “Form I-9s must be completed no later than three business days after employment.”

To minimize the shutdown’s impact, the agency stipulated:

• The three-day rule for creating E-Verify cases is suspended for cases affected by the outage. If an employee’s first day occurs between March 20 and March 26, employers will have until March 29 to create an E-Verify case.
• Workers will have two additional federal working days to resolve tentative nonconfirmations.
• Workers will have an additional two federal working days from the date listed on their referral date confirmation to contact the agencies.
• Employers may not take adverse action against an employee because the E-Verify case is in interim case status or during the extended interim case status due to the suspension. Federal contractors with E-Verify clauses should contact their contracting officer to inquire about extending contractor deadlines.

USCIS is prepping for a move to an upgraded user interface later this month. Enhanced features are expected to include a streamlined process for creating and managing cases, modernized data-matching to reduce tentative nonconfirmations, and improved data integrity.