While enrolling your company in E-Verify is an important step, preparing your company to participate in the program is equally important. Using E-Verify may require you to make changes to your company’s business processes and communicate those changes throughout your company. Depending on the size of your company, preparations might take a few days or several months.
We recommend you complete the following before enrolling in E-Verify.
1. Review the E-Verify Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and familiarize yourself with your company’s responsibilities when using E-Verify.
2. Decide which of your company’s hiring sites will participate in E-Verify. Hiring sites are typically where your employees are hired and complete their Forms I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. When you decide to have a hiring site participate in E-Verify, it means that you will use E-Verify for every newly hired employee at that site.
3. Determine which of your company’s locations, called verification locations, will need to access E-Verify to run cases. For example, one verification location may run cases for multiple hiring sites, or each hiring site may be its own verification location and run its own cases.
4. Decide who in your company will need to access E-Verify.
5. Determine if any changes are necessary to your company’s business processes, such as the way your company handles its Forms I-9.
You may choose to use E-Verify throughout your company, or you may limit your company’s participation to certain locations. While you are free to choose E-Verify participation on a site-by-site basis, your company must use E-Verify for all newly hired employees at each participating site.
While E-Verify offers your company this flexibility, your local and state laws and regulations may be more restrictive. For example, some states require companies to use E-Verify at all sites within that particular state. During enrollment, you’ll need to choose the number of hiring sites in each state that will participate in E-Verify.
To determine how to best use E-Verify, start with understanding how your company processes its Forms I-9. Some things to consider include:
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Where do employees complete the Form I-9?
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When do employees complete the Form I-9? (that is, on their first day, after hire but before their first day of work for pay?)
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Does your company outsource Form I-9 processing?
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Does your company forward its Forms I-9 to a central location?
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Does each location where the Form I-9 is completed have a computer with Internet access?
