Eligible Employees and/or Job Seekers Can Now Perform Self-Check E-Verification

Eligible Employees and/or Job Seekers Can Now Perform Self-Check E-Verification

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) launched the first E-Verify Self Check on March 21, 2011. It is an innovative service that allows individuals in the United States to check their own employment eligibility status before they formally seek employment.

E-Verify Self Check is in addition to an employer E-Verify procedure; it does not replace the employer E-Verify procedure. The E-Verify program compares information from the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) against federal government databases to verify workers’ employment eligibility.

E-Verify Self Check is administered by the USCIS, in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). USCIS is a division under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As of March 21, 2011, E-Verify Self Check is available to individuals who maintain an address and are physically located in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia; or Washington, DC. The E-Verify Self Check is expected to expand to other states in the coming months.

E-Verify Self Check service is voluntary and free. Efforts are being made to ensure that E-Verify Self-Check is secure to use when it comes to users’ personally identifiable information and to prevent misuse of the service. Moreover, information that users provide during E-Verify Self Check and the results of an E-Verify Self Check will not be shared with users’ employers or prospective employers.

The E-Verify Self Check system allows each user to identify data inaccuracies, ranging from typographical errors to unreported name changes. Such inaccuracies, if not corrected, would result in a mismatch before a person seeks employment. E-Verify Self Check gives users the opportunity to submit corrections of any inaccuracies in their DHS and SSA records before applying for jobs, therefore, allowing workers to better protect themselves from potential workplace discrimination that could result from an employer’s abuse of the E-Verify system.

There are four steps to the E-Verify Self Check process:

1. The users will enter identifying information online (such as name, date of birth and address)
2. The users will confirm their identity by answering demographic and/or financial questions generated by a third-party identity assurance service
3. The users will enter work eligibility information such as a Social Security number and, depending on citizenship status, an Alien Registration number
4. E-Verify Self Check checks users’ information against relevant SSA and DHS databases and returns information on users’ employment eligibility status

By Aik Wan Kok Fillali, Attorney at Law, at Tiya PLC; Tel: 703-772-8224; koka@tiyalaw.com

www.tiyaimmigration.com ; http://tiyalaw.blogspot.com ; www.immigrationresource.net

We represent employers, and individuals and their families in green card and work visa matters in U.S. immigration law. We also have a focus on self-petition green card cases such as extraordinary ability and national interest waiver.

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This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be relied on as a legal advice or an attorney-client relationship.

Updated I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Procedures

Updated I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Procedures

On April 14, 2011, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it has updated some of the procedures pertaining to Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) process. The new changes become effective on May 16, 2011.

Employers must complete Form I-9 for all newly hired employees to verify their identity and authorization to work in the United States.

The updated procedures include, but are not limited to matters such as: revising the list of acceptable documents by removing outdated documents and making technical amendments; prohibiting employers from accepting expired documents; and adding documentation applicable to certain citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The list of acceptable documents that employees may present to verify their identity and employment authorization is divided into three sections: List A documents, which show identity and employment authorization; List B documents, which show identity only; and List C documents, which show employment authorization only.

The USCIS indicates that employers may continue to use the current version of the Form I-9 (Rev. 08/07/2009) or the previous version (Rev. 02/02/2009). Employers may also access The Handbook for Employers, Instructions for Completing the Form I-9 (M-274) which was updated on Jan. 5, 2011, at www.uscis.gov/files/form/m-274.pdf

By Aik Wan Kok Fillali, Attorney at Law, at Tiya PLC; Tel: 703-772-8224
www.tiyaimmigration.com ; http://tiyalaw.blogspot.com ; www.immigrationresource.net

We represent employers, and individuals and their families in green card and work visa matters in U.S. immigration law. We also have a focus on self-petition green card cases such as extraordinary ability and exceptional ability.

All Rights Reserved. This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be relied on as a legal advice or an attorney-client relationship.

ICE: Prison Terms for Employers/Conspirators for Harboring, Transporting and Employing Illegal Aliens

5 residents pled guilty, on July 16, 2010, to knowingly harboring, transporting and employing illegal aliens, as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents (such as special agents).

ICE’s, an investigation agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), functions are to protect national security, public safety and the integrity of the U.S. borders by enforcing criminal and civil federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration.

The defendants transported and paid cash to these illegal foreign nationals for employment at various work sites, and used various properties to harbor and conceal them, to gain competitive economic advantage over their competition in the chicken industry. The defendants were sentenced to at least 12 to 30 months in prison, with supervised release thereafter, and forfeiture of properties totaling over $1.87 million.

It is important to be proactive in legal compliance:
1. Employers or their personnel should comply with various laws such as immigration, employment and tax law when hiring personnel in the U.S.
2. Before immigration crisis such as investigations, arrests, detention or removal/deportation, families living with or having relatives without legal immigration status in the U.S. should seek professional legal immigration help to legalize their immigration status within legal and ethical boundaries.

For further information, please visit ICE News Release at http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100720fortsmith.htm .

By Aik Wan Kok, Attorney at Law, at Tiya PLC; Tel: 202-506-9767
www.tiyaimmigration.com ; http://tiyalaw.blogspot.com ; www.immigrationresource.net

We represent companies, and individuals and their families in U.S. immigration law such as green card, work visa and waiver matters. We represent clients within the U.S. and abroad.

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This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be relied on as a legal advice or an attorney-client relationship.

A Smooth Sail for Employers? Immigration Worksite Enforcement

As Congress continues to appropriate more money to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employers in the U.S. will see an increase in immigration worksite enforcement in all industries, and industries involving critical infrastructure, according to officials of ICE who presided in a conference on May 28, 2009, held in affiliation with the immigration bar association.

Immigration worksite enforcement (worksite enforcement) is a process whereby the U.S. federal government, through ICE, enforces the law against the employers in the U.S. in the hope of effectively, including but not limiting to, reducing the demand for illegal employment, and protecting the employment opportunities in the U.S. for the U.S. lawful workforce. All employees must be authorized to work in the U.S., either automatically (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident) or by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Among other things, ICE agents are encouraged to conduct more investigation on employers’ compliance with the employment verification system on Form I-9. ICE’s new policy is to increase the number of fines levied on sanctioned employers, and to adopt more uniformity in the level of fines across the U.S. In addition to fines, ICE may also debar certain companies, found in violation of worksite enforcement, from accepting contracts from the U.S. federal government.

Much of the worksite enforcement policy was developed only two or three years ago and they continue to evolve rapidly because it was only in 2005 that the U.S. government started to increase its focus on worksite enforcement. ICE continues to provide training to their ICE agents on worksite enforcement policy to increase their agents’ expertise in executing the law on worksite enforcement.

Due to the continuous evolution of worksite enforcement policy, upon worksite enforcement from ICE agents, the employers, when appropriate, should not be afraid to respectfully challenge the ICE agents’ interpretation of the worksite enforcement law.

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For more information, please contact Aik Wan Kok, Immigration Attorney, at koka@tiyalaw.com, 703-772-8224 or www.tiyalaw.com. Ms. Kok at Tiya PLC represents companies and foreign nationals in the areas of immigration law (e.g. work authorization, green card and I-9 compliance). With more than a decade of professional immigration law experience with excellent results, we are your best source of professional U.S. immigration law services.

This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be relied on as a legal advice or an attorney-client relationship.