Georgia Tech's E-Verify Number

Attention Employees in F-1 OPT Status

If you are applying for a 17-month STEM extension you will need Georgia Tech's E-Verify number to apply. You must complete a Request for E-Verify Information e-form in iStart to obtain the number and, if applicable, a confirmation letter for your school. 

https://istart.gatech.edu/

If you have any questions, please email immigration@ohr.gatech.edu

Impact of Government Shutdown on Immigration Agencies

From the Council for Global Immigration, 10/01/2013

After months of negotiation between the administration and the two branches of Congress, no deal has been reached to keep the federal government open.  As such, federal immigration agencies are scrambling to implement a government shutdown.  While the situation is fluid and we have seen conflicting information from various sources, we have verified the following information through conversations and correspondence with government officials in order to ensure you have the most recent information.   Please let us know if your experience with the agencies differs from the information below and we will provide updates as the implementation of the shutdown continues to develop.

Department of Homeland Security

The DHS contingency plan for the shutdown can be found here.

USCIS Adjudications

USCIS is mostly fee funded, and therefore the impact on adjudications will be minimal compared to most immigration processes.  In fact, out of the 12,558 USCIS employees, all but about 300 will be reporting to work during a shutdown.

This means that processing at USCIS will be relatively normal, other than processes affected by other agencies (for instance, no new LCAs will be issued by Department of Labor for H-1Bs).

E- Verify

Unlike the rest of USCIS, E-Verify is not fee funded and will be inaccessible during a shutdown, including employment verification, resolution of Tentative Nonconfirmations (TNCs) and Self Check.   USCIS has provided the following guidance:

• The 'three-day rule' for E-Verify cases is suspended for cases affected by the shutdown. We’ll provide additional guidance once we reopen. This does NOT affect the Form I-9 requirement—employers must still complete the Form I-9 no later than the third business day after an employee starts work for pay.

• The time period during which employees may resolve TNCs will be extended. Days the federal government is closed will not count towards the eight federal government workdays the employee has to go to SSA or contact DHS. We will provide additional time once we reopen.

• For federal contractors complying with the federal contractor rule, please contact your contracting officer to inquire about extending deadlines.

• Employers may not take any adverse action against an employee because of an E-Verify interim case status, including while the employee’s case is in an extended interim case status due to a federal government shutdown (consult the E-Verify User Manual for more information on interim case statuses). 

Customs and Border Protection

Most CBP functions will continue, as most CBP staff are considered essential, but adjudication of TN and blanket L applications by Canadian citizens would stop during a government shutdown. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE will retain most of its staff because they are considered essential.   We do not expect any major issues with enforcement.

CIS Ombudsman

The CIS Ombudsman’s office will be closed during a government shutdown.

Department of Labor

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) notice regarding the shutdown can be found here. 

OFLC will essentially shut its doors during a shutdown.  This means no processing of labor certifications, LCAs or prevailing wage determinations during a shutdown.  We also now know that employers and attorneys will not even be able to log into the PERM and iCERT websites during a shutdown.  We are pushing for grace periods in situations such as recruitment expiration while the agency is closed.

Department of State

In previous situations where a shutdown was looming, we were told that a shutdown would basically mean cessation of consular affairs, visa processing and passport issuance altogether, except for certain narrow exceptions such as humanitarian exceptions.

With this shutdown, however, the Department of State appears to have a temporary solution but the details are unclear.  The official statement from the Department of State is:

Consular operations domestically and overseas will remain 100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations. However, if a passport agency is located in a government building affected by a lapse in appropriations, the facility may become unsupported. The continuance of consular operations in such instances will be treated on a case-by-case basis by the Under Secretary for Management.

We were able to confirm yesterday with the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs that visa issuance will continue at least temporarily.  We do not have confirmation at this time as to the alternative source of funding or how long it will last.

SEVIS is fee funded and we have not heard any indication that it will be affected by a shutdown.  We will keep you up to date if this news changes.

Department of State guidance on the shutdown can be found here.

Department of Justice

Office of the Special Counsel

The hotline for the Office of the Special Counsel will not be available to the public during a shutdown. Some attorneys working on litigation will work limited hours. 

Federal Shutdown Has Immediate Impact at DOL, E-Verify

From Fragomen.com, 10/01/2013

Department of Labor 

DOL's foreign labor certification operations have ceased and will remain suspended until further notice. DOL issued PERM and LCA certifications on Monday evening, but will not process any further cases to completion until after the shutdown concludes. When normal operations resume, employers should expect delays as the agency works through its case backlog. 

The PERM and iCERT systems are now offline and will remain so for the duration of the shutdown, but were briefly operational this morning and appeared to be accepting filings. It is not clear how applications submitted during this brief window of opportunity will be treated after the shutdown is over. Employers and their immigration counsel will need to monitor these cases closely after DOL operations resume, and should be prepared for the possibility that cases submitted today may need to be refiled later on.

Employers who filed PERM applications on Monday received DOL’s standard sponsorship questionnaire emails this morning, but will not be able to complete them until after the shutdown. 

Impact of DOL Shutdown on H-1B Filings 

Though USCIS will continue to process petitions during the shutdown, employers may not be able to file H-1B petitions because of the suspension of labor condition application (LCA) processing at the Department of Labor. A valid, certified LCA is a requirement for every H-1B petition. In the past, USCIS has relaxed its rules and accepted H-1B filings without certified LCAs when DOL operations have been suspended or delayed, but it has not yet announced whether it will do so during the present shutdown. Suspension of LCA operations will also affect the processing of E-3 and H-1B1 filings at USCIS Service Centers and U.S. consulates. E-3 and H-1B1 filings also require a valid, certified LCA.

U.S. Consulates 

Currently, visa services at U.S. consulates appear to be operating normally, but foreign nationals should submit visa applications and make visa appointments as soon as possible in case consular operations are affected by the shutdown later on. The State Department will use funding from application fees to support consular functions for the time being, but it is not clear how long these funds will remain available. Employers and visa applicants should be prepared for the possibility of future delays in the event that the shutdown persists for more than a few days and State Department needs to suspend or limit visa services. 

E-Verify Operations 

The E-Verify system is down for the duration of the federal shutdown. Employers will not be able to initiate E-Verify queries or resolve tentative nonconfirmations, and will not be expected to meet the usual E-Verify deadlines. However, employers must not take any adverse action against an employee whose employment eligibility verification cannot be confirmed in E-Verify due to the shutdown. 

All employers remain subject to the same I-9 obligations. E-Verify outage would not affect the deadlines that are applicable to Form I-9 completion. 

Other Government Benefits

The Social Security Administration has confirmed that it is not accepting or processing applications for Social Security numbers or replacement cards during the shutdown. Foreign nationals who are unable to obtain an SSN may not be able to apply for a U.S. driver's license, open a bank account or obtain other benefits. 

The SAVE system is operating during the shutdown. SAVE is the federal database used by government agencies -- including State Departments of Motor Vehicles -- to verify the immigration status of foreign nationals applying for benefits. Though foreign nationals could experience delays in driver's license applications and renewals for other reasons related to the shutdown, SAVE verifications should not be affected. 

New E-Verify Function Notifies Employees of a Record Mismatch

From Fragomen.com, 07/11/2013


USCIS is enhancing E-Verify to allow for direct notification to employees when their employment verification information cannot be confirmed against government databases. Notice of the mismatch – known as a tentative nonconfirmation (TNC) – will be provided as long as the employee has provided an email address on Form I-9. Notwithstanding the new functionality, employers are still required to notify the affected employee when a TNC is received. 

In the E-Verify system, if there is a mismatch between information provided by an employee and government databases, a TNC is issued to the employer, who must then contact the affected employee. With the new enhancement, E-Verify will notify both the employer and the affected employee. If the employee decides to take action to resolve the discrepancy, he or she must notify the employer, who will notify the relevant government agency, either the Social Security Administration for U.S. Citizens or the Department of Homeland Security for foreign nationals. 

In addition to providing the initial notice of a TNC, E-Verify will send reminder emails to the employee if no action to resolve the mismatch has occurred within four days of his or her decision to take action on the TNC. 

This latest enhancement to E-Verify comes in the wake of the recent revision to Form I-9, which gives new hires the option to include an email address on the form.

USCIS Unveils E-Verify Employer Search Tool

From Fragomen.com, 12/29/2012

USCIS today introduced a new web-based tool that allows the public to search the list of E-Verify participating employers by name, location, and/or status as a federal contractor. This information has been publicly available since this past spring, but the new tool makes the roster more easily searchable. It does not expand the scope of available data on E-Verify employers. 

The web tool and other USCIS sources list only those E-Verify employers who have reported a workforce of five employees or more. It is not a complete list of every E-Verify participant. Employers are listed by legal name (rather than the trade name), workforce size and location, though not every business location of an employer may appear. The list is updated on a quarterly basis. Employers who have terminated their participation in E-Verify are not listed.

If the employer is a federal contractor, USCIS discloses the scope of the employer’s verification practices. In addition to verifying the employment eligibility of all new hires, federal contractors must use the system to verify existing employees who are assigned to the federal contract. They have the option to verify all existing employees, including those who are not assigned to a federal contract.