The lawsuit challenging Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) federal contractor E-Verify rule has now been dismissed.  Ruling in favor of the DHS, the district court removed the last remaining obstacle to the regulation that would essentially require most federal contractors and many federal subcontractors to enroll in E-Verify.

As previously reported, the Obama Administration is committed to implementing the original E-Verify federal contractor rule, whose effective date was most recently postponed to September 8, 2009.  After that date, the federal contractor regulations will greatly expand the use of E-Verify.  The present E-Verify program is expressly limited for the employment verification of new hires. Federal contractors, however, will be required to use E-Verify to verify initial employment authorization for all new hires.  Furthermore, federal contractors will also be required to re-verify the employment authorization for all existing employees working under a covered federal contract.

While federal contractors are not required to immediately enroll in the E-Verify program, employers potentially subject to this requirement should immediately begin planning for E-Verify, and in particular how to identify employees subject to this new requirement.  Care will be required, as employers will need to use E-Verify for all new hires, regardless of whether the hire will work under a specified federal contract.  However, only certain existing employees will be subject to the re-verification requirement for E-Verify.

Jackson & Hertogs will discuss these matters in detail during its upcoming free one-hour webinar, "E-Verify & I-9 Compliance: Are You Ready?" on Thursday, October 15, 2009, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (1:00 PM Eastern Time) on the human resources website, hr.com.  If you are already a member of HR.com, please login to register for the webcast.  If you are not a member of HR.com, you will need to sign up for a free HR.com membership by visiting www.hr.com.  This will only take you a moment to fill in the required information. Once you have confirmation of your membership, you will be able to register for this complimentary webcast.

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