U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has pushed back the applicability date of a new rule requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to begin using the E-Verify system to verify their employees' eligibility to work legally in the United States.
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Download NowThe applicability date has been pushed back by six weeks to June 30, 2009. Federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to begin using the E-Verify system starting June 30, 2009. The extension provides the Obama administration more time to review the entire rule prior to its applicability to federal contractors and subcontractors.
The federal government has pushed the applicability date back three times—at first to February 20, then May 21, and now June 30. The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council amended the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to reflect this change.
The new rule implements Executive Order 12989, as amended by President George W. Bush on June 6, 2008, directing federal agencies to require that federal contractors agree to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their employees. The amended Executive Order reinforces the policy, first announced in 1996, that the federal government does business with companies that have a legal workforce. The new rule requires federal contractors to agree, through language inserted into their federal contracts, to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all persons hired during a contract term, and to confirm the employment eligibility of federal contractors' current employees who perform contract services for the federal government within the United States .
E-Verify is a web-based system that allows participating employers to verify electronically the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees. E-Verify evolved from the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program which was originally developed in 1997 and was made available to employers as a web-based program in 2004. USCIS operates the program in partnership with the Social Security Administration.