Secretary Napolitano Announces Launch of E-Verify Self Check
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Released: March 21, 2011
Online Tool Allows Workers to Check Their Own Employment Eligibility Status
WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas today announced the launch of E-Verify Self Check—an innovative service that allows individuals in the United States to check their own employment eligibility status before formally seeking employment.
“E-Verify is a smart, simple, and effective tool that allows us to work with employers to help them maintain a legal workforce,” said Secretary Napolitano. “The E-Verify Self Check service will help protect workers and streamline the E-Verify process for businesses.”
E-Verify Self Check, a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), is the first online E-Verify program offered directly to workers and job seekers. This voluntary, free, fast and secure service gives users the opportunity to submit corrections of any inaccuracies in their DHS and SSA records before applying for jobs—allowing workers to better protect themselves from potential workplace discrimination that could result from an employer’s abuse of the E-Verify system.
“The development of E-Verify Self Check reflects our commitment to the continual improvement of the E-Verify program,” said USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. “This new tool is a tremendous service for employees and employers alike.”
The E-Verify Self Check process consists of four steps:
- Users enter identifying information online (such as name, date of birth and address)
- Users confirm their identity by answering demographic and/or financial questions generated by a third-party identity assurance service
- Users enter work eligibility information such as a Social Security number and, depending on citizenship status, an Alien Registration number
- E-Verify Self Check checks users’ information against relevant SSA and DHS databases and returns information on users’ employment eligibility status
Every aspect of the E-Verify Self Check process is designed to secure users’ personally identifiable information and to prevent misuse of the service. Additionally, information that users provide to E-Verify Self Check and the results of an E-Verify Self Check are not shared with users’ employers or prospective employers. The results of a Self Check query do not replace the results of an employer E-Verify query.
The E-Verify program compares information from the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) against federal government databases to verify workers’ employment eligibility. The E-Verify Self Check system allows each user to identify data inaccuracies—which often range from typographical errors to unreported name changes—that would result in a mismatch before he or she seeks employment.
Beginning today, the E-Verify Self Check service is available to users who maintain an address and are physically located in Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia or the District of Columbia. In the coming months, USCIS will continue to expand the E-Verify Self Check service to additional eligible users on a rolling basis.
E-Verify is administered by USCIS in partnership with SSA. For more information on E-Verify Self Check, visit www.uscis.gov/everify.