E-Verify Participants Increasing by 1,000 Per Week
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced (PDF) that the E-Verify employment status verification program now has more than 52,000 employer participants, and that the program has been growing by approximately 1,000 participants per week since October. USCIS is recruiting new personnel for the first regional verification center in Buffalo, New York.
USCIS noted that participation in E-Verify remains voluntary, but that some states have begun requiring their employers to comply with a federal work authorization verification program. Arizona, for example, increased participation of its employers in E-Verify from 325 a year ago to more than 18,000 today.
Meanwhile, Illinois has delayed until April 15, 2008, implementation of a new law that would prohibit employers from participating in E-Verify until federal agency databases are able to resolve 99 percent of discrepancies within three days. The Illinois legislature is considering several bills that would amend the law.
