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Self-Check E-Verify System for Eligible Employees and/or Job Seekers

Tiyalaw — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:33:48 +0000

Self-Check E-Verify System for Eligible Employees and/or Job Seekers

On March 21, 2011, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) launched the first E-Verify Self Check, 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:

The users will enter identifying information online (such as name, date of birth and address)
The users will confirm their identity by answering demographic and/or financial questions generated by a third-party identity assurance service
The users will enter work eligibility information such as a Social Security number and, depending on citizenship status, an Alien Registration number
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.

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

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New I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Procedures

Tiyalaw — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:28:28 +0000

New 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 greencard 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.

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Ground-Breaking Proposed H-1B Electronic Registration System for H-1B Visa Cap Petitions

Tiyalaw — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:12:21 +0000

Ground-Breaking Proposed H-1B Electronic Registration System for H-1B Visa Cap Petitions

The ground-breaking H-1B Electronic Registration System is finally being proposed for implementation for H-1B petitions that are subject to the statutory annual visa cap, after lengthy discussions.

An H-1B petition is a temporary work visa for specialty occupation foreign nationals to live and work in the U.S. Many H-1B foreign nationals have successfully gone on to apply for and obtaining green card status. Annually, there are 65,000 H-1B visa numbers; and an additional 20,000 H-1B cap-exempt petitions under the advanced degree exemption which applies to an H-1B beneficiary who has successfully obtained a U.S. Master’s degree or higher. Not all H-1B petitions are subject to the annual visa cap, depending on the types of H-1B petition being filed, and the types of entity-sponsor. For examples, foreign nationals who already have approved H-1B petitions or H-1B status, or H-1B petitions filed by certain types of employers, are exempt from the annual visa cap.

The H-1B Electronic Registration System serves to reduce costs and increase efficiency, to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and potential H-1B employers, in the pre-and initial filing stages of H-1B cap petitions (including the online stage of labor condition applications to the U.S. Department of Labor).

Once implemented, the H-1B Electronic Registration System would allow employers interested in filing H-1B petitions subject to the statutory visa cap to register electronically with the USCIS. The estimated time to complete the registration of an H-1B in this System is 30 minutes. Using this H-1B Electronic Registration System, the USCIS would select the number of registrations predicted to exhaust all available visas before the petition filing period begins (filing period for H-1B cap petitions starts on April 1 each year, until the H-1B visa numbers are exhausted – the requested employment start-date for the H-1B cap petition would be no earlier than October 1 in the same year). The employers would then file their petitions only for the registered H-1B cap petitions that have been selected for visa numbers.

Under the proposed H-1B Electronic Registration System, petitioners would have 60 or more days from the date of notification of selection (“selection notice”) to properly file (i.e. send the H-1B package to the USCIS) a completed H-1B petition for the named beneficiary. USCIS would state the applicable filing deadline in each selection notice. The USCIS would reject a selected H-1B petition (and return the associated filing fees) that is filed outside the stipulated filing deadline on the selection notice.

Potential H-1B cap candidates who are not selected in a given annual visa cap have the options to have their H-1B cap petitions submitted to the USCIS in the next fiscal year. The H-1B visa cap fiscal year starts on October 1 each year, and the H-1B cap petitions filing period begins on April 1 each year. In addition, non-selected H-1B cap candidates can consider other immigration options such as eligibility for self-petition green cards.

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, work visa and waiver matters in U.S. immigration law.