After Last Bid to Delay Fails, E-Verify Mandate for Federal Contractors Begins on September 8

It’s September 8th, 2009 and after four delays since January the E-Verify Federal Contractor Rule has finally been implemented. If you are currently a federal contractor or subcontractor, or hope to be, do you know if your workers – both current employees and future new hires – are legal?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, despite a last ditch effort by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to delay the E-Verify mandate while a federal appeal is pending, the government began ordering nearly 170,000 federal contractors and subcontractors to use an electronic verification system known as E-Verify to verify the legal status of their roughly 4 million estimated workers starting September 8.

Under the sweeping new mandate that took effect September 8 – which represents a significant expansion for the E-Verify system that both government officials and independent experts expect to become mandatory for all private employers nationwide in the future – a clause requiring contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify will be written into every new or renewed government contract, and will also be written into every new work order issued under existing contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Enforcement of the mandate will be left up to government agencies that issued the contracts, according to the Wall Street Journal, and under the new clause contractors must check the legal eligibility of every employee working on a government project through the web-based E-Verify system, which compares data entered by employers with records maintained in Social Security Administration (SSA) and immigration databases.

Contractors worried about maintaining compliant with the new E-Verify mandate may consider using a third party agent to help them avoid government audits that could lead to fines, penalties, and even jail. A designated E-Verify service agent like I-9Compliance.com – offered by nationally recognized pre-employment screening provider Pre-Employ.com – can give employers a fast, accurate, and easy to use I-9/E-Verify solution that maintains full compliance, eliminates errors, avoids audits, and ensures jobs for legal workers.

To learn how to get I-9Compliance.com's solution for FREE, visit www.i-9compliance.com/FREE/. For additional information, view a FREE archived webinar on demand at http://www.i-9compliance.com/On-Demand-Webinars.aspx, visit www.i-9compliance.com, email sales@i-9compliance.com, or call 1-800-300-1821. To follow Pre-Employ.com on Twitter, visit www.twitter.com/PreEmploy.

tahearn@pre-employ.com

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