Release Date: July 8, 2009 – For Immediate Release – Office of the Press Secretary – Contact: 202-282-8010

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today strengthened employment eligibility verification by announcing the Administration’s support for a regulation that will award federal contracts only to employers who use E-Verify to check employee work authorization. The declaration came as Secretary Napolitano announced the Department’s intention to rescind the Social Security No-Match Rule, which has never been implemented and has been blocked by court order, in favor of the more modern and effective E-Verify system.

“E-Verify is a smart, simple and effective tool that reflects our continued commitment to working with employers to maintain a legal workforce,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Requiring those who seek federal contracts to use this
system will create a more reliable and legal workforce.

The rule complements our Department’s continued efforts to strengthen immigration law enforcement and protect critical employment opportunities. As Senator Schumer and others have recognized, we need to continue to work to improve E-Verify, and we will.”

E-Verify, which compares information from the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) against federal government databases to verify workers’ employment eligibility, is a free web-based system operated by DHS in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). The system facilitates compliance with federal immigration laws and helps to deter unauthorized individuals from attempting to work and also helps employers avoid employing unauthorized aliens.

The federal contractor rule extends use of the E-Verify system to covered federal contractors and subcontractors, including those who receive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. After a careful review, the Administration will push ahead with full implementation of the rule, which will apply to federal solicitations and contract awards Government-wide starting on September 8, 2009.

On average, one thousand employers sign up for E-Verify each week, totaling more than 134,000 employers representing more than half a million locations nationwide. Westat, an independent research firm, found that 96.9 percent of all queries run through E-Verify are automatically confirmed work-authorized within 24 hours. The figure is based on statistics gathered from October through December 2008. Since October 1, 2008, E-Verify has processed more than six million queries.

In an April 2009 American Customer Satisfaction Index Survey of over a
thousand E-Verify participants, E-Verify scored 83 out of a possible 100 points—well above the latest federal government satisfaction index of 69 percent.

In addition to expanding participation, DHS continues to enhance E-Verify in order to guard against errors, enforce compliance, promote proper usage, and enhance security. Recent E-Verify advancements include new processes to reduce typographical errors and new features to reduce initial mismatches. In May 2008, DHS added access to naturalization database records which increased the program’s ability to automatically verify naturalized citizens’ status, reducing citizenship-related mismatches by 39 percent.

Additionally, in February 2009, the agency incorporated Department of State passport data in the E-Verify process to reduce mismatches among foreign-born citizens. Other initiatives underway will bring further improvements to Federal database
accuracy; add new tools to prevent fraud, misuse, and discrimination; strengthen training, monitoring, and compliance; and enhance privacy protections.

DHS will be proposing a new regulation rescinding the 2007 No-Match Rule, which was blocked by court order DHS: Secretary Napolitano Strengthens Employment Verification with Administration’s shortly after issuance and has never taken effect. That rule established procedures that employers could follow if they receive SSA No-Match letters or notices from DHS that call into question work eligibility information provided by employees. These notices most often inform an employer many months or even a year later that an employee’s name and Social Security Number provided for a W-2 earnings report do not match SSA records—often due to typographical errors or unreported name changes. E-Verify addresses data inaccuracies that can
result in No-Match letters in a more timely manner and provides a more robust tool for identifying unauthorized individuals and combating illegal employment.

As Governor of Arizona, Secretary Napolitano signed legislation mandating all employers in the State use EVerify.Implementation of this legislation has received high marks from employers across Arizona and the USCIS Ombudsman (in a December 2008 report).

For more information on E-Verify, visit www.uscis.gov/everify or you can e-mail us at info@visaserve.com.

Americans across the country are familiar with Wal-Mart for their “roll-back” prices and friendly service. What most people don’t know is that, after their immigration scandals in 2001 and 2003, Wal-Mart has lead the country in enforcing employer compliance with requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”). Since paying a record-setting $11 million to the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division (“ICE”), Wal-Mart has become the reluctant leader in employer compliance programs. As anyone trying to sign a contract with Wal-Mart will tell you, it’s no walk in the park to meet their strict demands, but it is the way of the future for employment verification procedures.

By way of history, in 2001, 100 illegal immigrant janitors were arrested at Wal-Mart stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri and New York, and an additional 245 were arrested in October 2003 at 60 stores across 21 states. The allegation that Wal-Mart knew the janitors were illegal was denied by Wal-Mart’s top executives; nevertheless they admitted that they should have been keeping a more watchful eye over what their sub-contractors were doing. In a statement from Washington, federal officials announced that 12 janitorial contractors that worked for Wal-Mart had agreed to forfeit $4 million to the government and to plead guilty to criminal charges of employing illegal immigrants. The workers came from nearly 20 countries, including Mexico, Brazil, the Czech Republic, China, Poland and Russia.

As part of the $11 million settlement, Wal-Mart was permanently barred from hiring illegal immigrants and was ordered to establish a mechanism to make sure that its contractors “are taking reasonable steps to comply with immigration laws” within 18 months from the settlement date. Wal-Mart has since pledged to train all of its store managers to avoid “knowingly hiring” or “continuing to employ” illegal immigrant workers. Wal-Mart also agreed to continue cooperating with federal officials investigating its contractors. It’s no surprise that the regulations Wal-Mart has since built into their sub-contractor agreements are very rigid.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have seen the addendums to the Wal-Mart contracts, you are aware that there are stipulations which require all sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors to follow the ICE “10 Best Practices for Employers”, which is a component of ICE’s IMAGE (“Ice Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers”) Program. Such practices include registering with the E-Verify Program, conducting training programs for all staff related to I-9 compliance, annual internal and third party I-9 audits, implementing an internal tip line, and full cooperation with government officials from the Department of Homeland Security. Not only are these required for the general contractor, but also for all sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors. Needless to say, it has become burdensome for many small employers who wish to partner with a company such as Wal-Mart.

Nachman & Associates, P.C. is a Global Immigration Law Firm that has successfully helped companies become compliant with the regulations pushed down by Wal-Mart. In fact, other large employers such as Verizon have also been adopting the Wal-Mart compliance plan and requiring it for their own contractors, sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors. In this era of compliance, it is important that employers can not only be in compliance with the law (as it will most likely only get tougher on violators), but also be able to handle the demands of both the government and large corporations who are pushing down these mandates. As Managing Attorney David H. Nachman says, “when we look into the crystal ball, we can see what’s coming down the pike and it means that employers need to be more vigilant.”

Mr. Nachman and his staff have been training employers about proper employment verification procedures for over a decade and most recently, pursuant to a federal training grant from the US Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (“OSC”), the Nachman & Associates team has been traveling across the tri-state area, and across the country via webinar, to help employers overcome the confusion in this “age of enforcement.” To contact Nachman & Associates for more information on compliance programs or to attend or schedule free training on employment verification procedures, anti-discrimination, E-Verify and IMAGE, please feel free to visit the website at www.visaserve.com. You can also feel free to call us at 201-670-0006 (x107).