U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says it has made improvements to the E-Verify employment authorization program.

More than 64,000 employers participate in E-Verify with about 1,000 new enrollments weekly. The web-based system allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of newly-hired employees. E-Verify evolved from the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program originally developed in 1997 and made available to employers as a web-based system in 2004. USCIS operates the program in partnership with the Social Security Administration.

The agency says that the latest changes to E-Verify "will reduce an already low mismatch rate (for authorized workers), while also streamlining and increasing the effectiveness of the overall program."

"Less than one percent of all work-authorized employees receive a tentative nonconfirmation through E-Verify," says USCIS Acting Director Jonathan Scharfen. "While this is a very small percentage, we believe every employee who is authorized to work in the United States should be instantly authorized by the program. We're confident that the enhancements we're launching today will help us achieve that goal."

Starting May 5, the E-Verify system will include naturalization data, which will help instantly confirm the citizenship status of naturalized U.S. citizens hired by E-Verify employers. Naturalized citizens who have yet to update their records with the Social Security Administration (SSA) are the largest category of work-authorized persons who initially face an SSA mismatch in E-Verify, the agency says. Additionally, a naturalized citizen who receives a citizenship mismatch with SSA can call USCIS directly to resolve the issue (in addition to the option of resolving the mismatch in person at any SSA field office.)

E-Verify also will now include real-time arrival data from the Integrated Border Inspection System. This additional data source will reduce the number of immigration status related mismatches for newly arriving workers who have entered the country legally, the agency says.

USCIS also plans to initiate citizenship status records information sharing with SSA to further help prevent tentative nonconfirmations from occurring. The agency says that this effort will improve the efficiency of E-Verify by providing to SSA with the most accurate and timely citizenship status information. E-Verify also plans to check against Department of State passport records in the near future to even further reduce mismatches.