After trying to keep the system up despite the government shutdown, on October 1, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suspended E-Verify services. Tonight, October 7, the system was brought back online. It is unclear how long it will remain operational, or how USCIS managed to restore access during the
Continue Reading E-Verify is Back Baby: System is Now Operational Despite Government ShutdownBy: Dawn Lurie, Alexander Madrak, and Matthew Parker*
A Morning of Uncertainty
Employers awoke this morning to news of a federal government shutdown, prompting immediate concern over employment authorization compliance. Chief among those concerns: the availability of E-Verify. Questions like “Will E-Verify remain online?” “What happens to my
Continue Reading USCIS Suspends E-Verify Amid Government ShutdownUS Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) initially deployed the Status Change Report on June 20, 2025, to help certain employers identify whether any E-Verify cases were created using an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) that has since been revoked by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Continue Reading E-Verify Revocation Lists for CHNV Updated: Employers Have to Add One More Thing to Their To-Do Lists
On the morning of February 14, 2024, several clients reached out after encountering issues with the photo matching tool in E-Verify. They reported discrepancies where the photos transmitted by E-Verify did not align with the photos on the employees’ documents. It became increasingly clear that E-Verify was not rendering
Continue Reading Valentines Day Glitch: E-Verify Photo-Match Mayhem
Tuesday, June 28, 20222:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Central
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Mountain
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Pacific
Please join Seyfarth’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement Team as they launch a four-part series focused on critical challenges faced by employers in
Continue Reading Webinar: Special Delivery – Unwelcome Outreach from the Government: Part 1: Love Letters From E-Verify – Complexities and Nuances
On February 17, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced that it will dispose of any E-Verify records older than 10 years on May 14, 2021. On May 19, the E-Verify Records Disposal Date was extended to June 4, 2021. This notice provides a reminder to employers that participation
Continue Reading E-Verify Spring Cleaning
By Dawn Lurie
With a new Administration moving into Washington D.C. amidst tension and confusion, immigration compliance remains top of mind for employers. I know that because I hear from H.R. leadership, General Counsel’s offices, administrators running small family businesses, and shift managers at local pizza places across the country. Some companies tell me they continue to “work from home,” some never left the workplace, and others are operating in a hybrid model. Whatever the industry, wherever the location, and no matter the size, we are witnessing a significant shift in the onboarding process to produce outcomes similar to those achieved in-person; how we complete the Form I-9 is no exception.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt technological barriers that prevented remote work in the past. In doing so, it is forcing changes to the onboarding process while simultaneously addressing health and safety concerns. Employers facing these vexing Form I-9 compliance issues and ongoing confusion are hungry for more explicit directives from the government, and in turn, the government is trying to keep pace. I am hopeful that the new administration, along with the hardworking career government corps, will recognize these challenges and partner with companies as they create effective and safe processes that meet the challenges of 2021, including those hurdles presented in 2020.
Below, we travel back into 2020 in order to flag concerns and frame various I-9 issues for employers, including a slightly updated set of Form I-9 Examples Related to Temporary COVID -19 Policies posted on I-9 Central’s Temporary Policies Related to COVID-19 page, as well as an October 2020 update to the M-775, E-Verify User Manual, concerning Tentative Non Confirmation (TNC) practices.
Continue Reading What’s New in the New Year? Initial I-9 Musings & Treasures from 2020
Blog updated January 7 with USCIS clarifications found below.
As employers across the country started 2021 with optimism for a better year, E-Verify was stuck in 2020, experiencing a short period of technical trouble. The site was down unexpectedly from Monday, January 5 at 1:53 PM EST until Tuesday, January 6 at 8:06 PM EST. Both the Web Services and Direct Access portals were affected.
Background on the Program
E-Verify was first authorized by Congress in 1996, allowing employers to electronically confirm their employees’ employment eligibility to work in the United States. E-Verify employers verify the identity and employment eligibility of newly hired employees by electronically matching the information provided by employees on the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, against records available to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Continue Reading E-Verify Rings in the New Year with Shadows of 2020