The U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) March 17 announced three initiatives they say are designed to make the E-Verify employee verification system stronger and more efficient.
Under the first initiative, USCIS and the Department of Justice signed an agreement that will allow the two departments to communicate better on cases involving E-Verify misuse and discrimination. USCIS also has created an employee hotline (888-897-7781) that will be active April 5 and will allow workers to obtain information about E-Verify and their rights under the program in addition to being able to file complaints. Finally, two new training videos are available that focus on procedures, employee rights and employer responsibilities under the E-Verify system. The videos are available by visiting
www.dhs.gov/e-verify.
The announcement of the new initiatives comes just months after a Jan. 28 report stating that E-Verify wrongly authorized about 54 percent of illegal immigrants to work in the United States.
A September 2009 rule makes the use of E-Verify mandatory for all federal contractors, but it is still available to non-federal contractors on a voluntary basis.
For more information on USCIS new initiatives, visit
www.dhs.gov/e-verify.