The E-Verify system experienced technical issues which caused it to be unavailable beginning at some point January 4th, 2021through the entire business day of January 5th, 2021
For employers who participate in E-Verify, it is important to note that the unavailability of E-Verify has no impact on an employer’s ability to timely complete the Form I-9 and employers should never delay and employee’s start date due an inability to create a case in E-Verify.
On January 7, 2021, E-Verify released the following guidelines:
Creating Cases
Now that E-Verify is fully operational, E-Verify participating employers must create an E-Verify case by January 11, 2021 for each employee hired while E-Verify was temporarily unavailable from January 4 to January 5, 2021. You must use the hire date from the employee’s Form I-9 when creating the E-Verify case. For these employees, if you do not create an E-Verify case by the third business day after the employee begins work for pay, select “Technical Problems” from the drop-down list as the specific reason. The days beginning January 4, 2021 through January 8, 2021 will not count toward the three business days employers have to create a case in E-Verify.
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Tentative Nonconfirmations
If your employee received a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) and notified you of his or her intention to contest while E-Verify was temporarily unavailable, you must revise the date by which your employee must contact DHS to begin resolving the TNC. You have three options to revise the date on the previously printed ‘Referral Date Confirmation’ notice:
- The best option is to print a new ‘Referral Date Confirmation’ notice which will have the new date employees must contact DHS to begin resolving their TNC. To reprint a copy of your employee’s “Referral Date Confirmation” log-in to E-Verify, select your employee’s case and select the “Print Confirmation” button.
- Log-in to E-Verify to obtain the new referral date found by selecting the employee’s case and write the new date on the previously issued ‘Referral Date Confirmation’ notice.
- Add five federal business days to the date on your employee’s “Referral Date Confirmation” notice. Federal business days are Monday through Friday and do not include federal holidays. Give the revised notice to your employee.
For DHS TNC cases that were referred after E-Verify was fully operational on January 6, 2021, do not add days to the time your employee has to contact DHS. If your employee decided to contest the TNC when E-Verify was unavailable, you should now refer the employee’s case and follow the TNC process.
If your employee received a Social Security Administration (SSA) TNC, you do not need to add any additional days. Due the Covid-19 pandemic, E-Verify has temporarily extended the timeframe employees have to contest their SSA TNC. The period of time that E-Verify was temporarily unavailable does not affect these employees.
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Federal Contractor Deadlines
During the time E-Verify was temporarily unavailable, federal contractors could not enroll or use E-Verify as required by the E-Verify federal contractor rule (FAR). As a result, any calendar day during which E-Verify was unavailable will not count towards any of the federal contractor deadlines. Please contact your contracting officer, as necessary, for more information on federal contractor responsibilities. |
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Employees
If the unavailability of E-Verify prevented you from contesting your Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC), you will be allowed additional time to contact DHS to begin the process of resolving your TNC. If your referral date confirmation was received while E-Verify was temporarily unavailable, you have three options to obtain your new date:
- Contact your employer and have them print out a new “Referral Date Confirmation” notice for you. Your notice will have the new date for when you must contact the DHS to begin resolving your TNC.
- Ask your employer to log-in to E-Verify to obtain your new referral date and write the new date on your previously issued ‘Referral Date Confirmation’ notice.
- Add five federal business days to the date printed on the “Referral Date Confirmation” that your employer provided you after you contested your DHS TNC. Federal business days are Monday through Friday and do not include federal holidays.
Contact DHS by the new date to begin the process of resolving your TNC.
If you received a Social Security Administration (SSA) TNC, you are still covered by the extension resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic in which E-Verify has temporarily extended the timeframe you have to contest your SSA TNC. The unavailability of E-Verify does not affect you.
For more information about contesting your TNC, please refer to E-Verify’s employee page |
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For employers who use online I-9 systems, these systems will normally pend new E-Verify cases until the system is available and automatically submit those cases as soon as E-Verify becomes available. You should check with your provider to determine specific activities may be required by you. For employer’s who enter E-Verify cases directly into the E-Verify system, please be sure to put new employee I-9s aside and ensure that as soon as the E-Verify system becomes available that you create cases for those records.
