USCIS clarifies precise meaning of "hire date" for E-Verify users

For employers using E-Verify, the exact meaning of "hire date" had been a tricky issue: What is the "hire date" in E-Verify if the employee accepted an offer prior to beginning to work for pay?

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which operates E-Verify, has attempted to clarify this point. (E-Verify is the federal system for checking work eligibility of new hires. It's optional for most employers but required in some states and for some federal contractors.)

As we reported earlier in a Compliance Bulletin, USCIS posted a clarification to it's Web site that said: "E-Verify does not allow you to select a future date as the hire date, so if the employee has not yet started work for pay, the E-Verify date is always the date you create the case in E-Verify."

"An E-Verify case is not late as long as it is created no later than the third business day after the employee started work for pay—it doesn't matter how many days have passed between the employee completing Form I-9 and the employer creating the case in E-Verify," the USCIS said.

The recent Compliance Bulletin also discussed Utah E-Verify law that went into effect July 1, the recent ruling by the New York Department of Labor prohibiting payroll deductions to recover wage overpayments, and Vermont's new law expressly allowing paycards.

To receive the latest Compliance Bulletin, or to sign up to receive future bulletins, please send an email to compliance.bulletin@talx.com with "subscribe" in the subject line.

About 150,000 E-Verify queries are submitted each month by clients of the TALX electronic I-9 service. To learn about how the TALX I-9 solution can integrate with E-Verify and provide tools for improved compliance, send an email to moreinfo@talx.com with "I-9 compliance" in the subject line.

Newsletter: July 2010, Volume III