Enrolling in the Electronic Verification Program
Enrollment takes an afternoon. What it signs the company up for is a standing agreement with two federal agencies, a deadline on every hire, a set of things the company may never do with the system, and a right of inspection.
The rule in short
An employer enrolls online, chooses an access method and signs a memorandum of understanding with two federal agencies. The memorandum requires a case for every new hire at a participating site no later than the third business day after work for pay begins, forbids prescreening and selective verification, requires two notices to be posted, and permits the agencies to review records. Contractors carrying the verification clause enroll on fixed deadlines after award.
Enrollment in the electronic verification program is a contract, not a registration. The employer signs a memorandum of understanding with two federal agencies, and that document — rather than any statute the employer will read — is where most of the obligations live. It is worth reading before it is signed rather than after a case goes wrong.
Who enrolls, and why
For most private employers participation is voluntary. Three groups do not have the choice. Federal contractors whose contracts carry the employment eligibility verification clause must enroll. Employers in states that mandate participation must enroll on the terms that state sets. And an employer that wants to host a student on the extended practical training track must be enrolled, as described in practical training and the employer reporting duty.
The third category catches companies by surprise, because a single hire pulls the whole organization into the program's obligations. There is no limited enrollment for one student.
What enrollment consists of
The employer chooses an access method: acting for itself, acting through an agent, or administering multiple entities under one corporate account. It supplies its identifying information, the number of employees, and the hiring sites that will participate. It names program administrators, who complete the required tutorial and pass the knowledge assessment before they can open a case.
Then it signs the memorandum. The version signed depends on the access method chosen, and the differences are real: an employer acting through an agent allocates responsibilities differently, but it does not shed them.
The obligations the memorandum creates
The central deadline is the case. It must be created no later than the third business day after the employee begins work for pay. It cannot be created earlier than the acceptance of an offer and the completion of the verification form, whose own timetable is set out in the verification form and who signs it, and by when.
Four prohibitions matter more than the rest. The employer may not use the system to prescreen applicants. It may not verify selectively among new hires at a participating site. It may not use the system to reverify existing employees, outside the contractor situation described below. And it may not take adverse action against an employee because a case is unresolved, which is treated separately in tentative nonconfirmations and the right to contest.
| Situation | What triggers the obligation | Which workers are run | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voluntary participant | The employer's own decision to enroll | All new hires at participating sites | Case by the third business day after work for pay begins |
| Federal contractor with the clause | Award of a contract carrying the verification clause | New hires, plus existing employees assigned to the contract | Enrollment and use on the fixed deadlines in the clause |
| State-mandated participant | State law applicable to the employer or its contracts | As the state law defines | As the state law defines, alongside the federal deadline |
| Host of an extended-track trainee | The decision to host one qualifying student | All new hires at participating sites | Enrollment before the training plan is signed |
| Employer acting through an agent | The same trigger as the underlying category | The same population | Unchanged; the agent performs, the employer answers |
Participants appear in the program's published listing, and that listing is used by contracting officers, by schools confirming a training host, and by anyone verifying a claim on a company's careers page. An employer that enrolls, stops running cases, and never terminates its participation is a participant on paper with no cases in the system. That mismatch is visible from outside and is one of the easier findings for a reviewer to make.
The federal contractor variant
A contractor whose award carries the clause enrolls within the period the clause states after award, begins running new hires within the stated period after enrollment, and verifies existing employees assigned to the contract within the periods the clause sets. This is the one context in which existing employees are run through the system, and it is limited to those actually assigned to the covered contract unless the contractor elects the broader option the clause permits.
The mechanics resemble every other post-award registration obligation a contractor carries, and they fail the same way: an award is signed by one team and the enrollment deadline belongs to another. The parallel in transportation, where authority to operate depends on filings made on a schedule after the grant, is set out in operating authority: registration, numbers and insurance filings.
Notices, records and getting out
Two notices must be posted where applicants and employees will see them: the participation notice and the notice of the right to work. Both are supplied by the program and both are required in English and Spanish. Posting them on an intranet page that applicants never reach does not satisfy the requirement.
Each case produces a verification number, and that number is recorded with the verification form or the case details page is retained with it. The retention of that material follows the form's retention rule rather than a separate one.
An employer may leave the program on written notice within the period the memorandum specifies. Termination ends the obligation to run cases going forward; it does not erase the case history, and it does not release the employer from anything that happened while it participated. Companies deciding whether to enroll at all — particularly those with multi-state operations where state mandates differ — usually want employment verification counsel to map the obligations before enrollment rather than after, because unwinding a partial rollout is harder than designing one.
Points to carry away
- Enrollment is a memorandum of understanding among the employer and two federal agencies.
- A case must be created no later than the third business day after the employee begins work for pay.
- A case may not be created before an offer is accepted and the verification form is complete.
- Verification must cover every new hire at a participating site, not a selected subset.
- Two notices must be posted where applicants and employees can see them.
- A federal contractor carrying the verification clause enrolls on a fixed deadline after award.
Questions readers ask
Can a company enroll only its head office?
Yes. Enrollment can be site-specific, and a company may designate which hiring sites participate. What it cannot do is participate at a site and then verify only some of the people hired there. Within a participating site the obligation is universal, and selecting which new hires to run is the clearest form of discriminatory use the system can produce. Companies that phase in locations should document the phasing plan, because a partial rollout and a selective practice look identical in the case data.
Does enrollment remove the paper obligation?
No. The verification form is still completed on its own timetable, still retained on its own rule, and still the document an inspection asks for. The electronic case is built from information on the completed form and cannot be created before the form exists. Employers that treat enrollment as a replacement end up with cases they cannot support and forms they never finished. The two systems sit on top of each other, and the paper one remains the record of the transaction.
What does the agreement allow the agencies to do?
Review the employer's use of the system, including periodic visits to examine records relating to the memorandum, and require the employer's cooperation with those reviews. It also requires the employer to safeguard the information it obtains, to limit access to authorized users, and to report certain problems. These are ongoing obligations rather than conditions of entry, and they are the part of the agreement least often read by the person who clicks through it.
Sources
- E-Verify — EmployersThe program's own statement of employer obligations and prohibited uses.
- E-Verify — Enrolling in E-VerifyThe enrollment steps, access methods and the memorandum of understanding.
- Federal Acquisition Regulation — Clause 52.222-54, Employment Eligibility VerificationThe contract clause requiring enrollment and setting the contractor deadlines.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 8 U.S.C. 1324a, Unlawful Employment of AliensThe statutory verification scheme the program operates within.
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — I-9 CentralThe paper obligations that enrollment supplements rather than replaces.
- eCFR — 8 CFR Part 274a, Control of Employment of AliensThe verification and penalty provisions in current regulatory text.
Lawwise is a publication, not a law firm. This article states general rules and cites its sources; it is not advice about any particular case, and the law differs by state and changes over time.
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Successor Employers and the Records They Inherit
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