E-Verify

On March 21, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a new service that will allow individuals to check their own employment eligibility status. E-Verify Self-Check will be helpful in correcting errors before seeking employment. The program is slated to be nationwide within the next 12 months, but is currently active in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

(http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1300711524714.shtm)

It is an interesting program that may help employers through reduced errors in the system. As it stands, if an employee receives a tentative non-confirmation (meaning there are issues found during the check, but not definitive enough to provide a final non-confirmation) the employee is allowed to contest and must remain employed until the final non-confirmation is supplied. By allowing employees to self-check, the hope is that employers will not be faced with employing individuals for a few weeks only to find that they are not eligible for employment.

The news release cited above combined with the likelihood of the Georgia Legislature passing House Bill 87/Senate Bill 40, requiring employers in GA to utilize the E-Verify System, prompted this blog post.

What is E-Verify:

As the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) describes it, E-Verify is an Internet-based system that compares information from an employee's Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, to data from U.S Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.

USCIS indicates that nearly a quarter of a million businesses are currently using E-Verify with about a thousand more signing up each day.

Why Do It?

It is a simple way of ensuring that you don't have employees who are trying to cheat the system. Unfortunately, I have been on the receiving end of a call regarding an employee who wanted to "update her information" because she was now legal.

The Executive Director of a facility with which I worked informed me that one of her employees brought her a social security card and told her she was legal now and needed her information changed. The employee had been employed by the facility for nearly two years. She had provided falsified documentation that appeared sufficient for the purposes of the I-9. Of course, we had to terminate the employee.

Losing an employee who had worked for two years is problematic on many fronts. We had invested in this employee, and she had become a member of the organization only to be terminated. We were then required to start looking for her replacement, costing us time and money.

Additionally, Georgia employers should be aware that House Bill 87/Senate Bill 40, if passed, will require employers to utilize the system. As noted above, passage is likely, and it is better to be prepared by enrolling in E-Verify now.

What HR Consult Team Can Do:

HR Consult Team is in the process of becoming an E-Verify Employer Agent. This means that HR Consult Team will be able to assist employers with the following:

- Enrolling companies and updating their profile information

- Registering new users

- Creating user accounts for other Program Administrators and General
Users

- Creating and managing cases

- Viewing reports

- Updating profile information for other Program Administrators and
General Users

- Unlocking user accounts

From the looks of things it is only a matter of time until House Bill 87/Senate Bill 40 will pass and employers will be obligated to utilize the E-Verify system. HR Consult Team will help companies with the transition and administration of E-Verify.