Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a hot topic in Congress and in the news media. While the debate continues to rage over issues pertaining to legal status for undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S., don’t lose sight of provisions that any reform proposal is likely to include, which will impact your Human Resource compliance strategies. This is the first of a series of updates that address aspects of Comprehensive Immigration Reform likely to affect you. Below is a synopsis of I-9 and EVerify provisions as contained in the Senate bill passed in June and mirrored in several pending House proposals.

New Form I-9 and employee contact information -

You’ve probably noticed that the new version of Form I-9, which became mandatory on May 7 of this year, allows your employees to supply telephone and e-mail information. You must enter this information into E-Verify when setting up your employee’s E-Verify case. Supplying this information opts your employees into an automated government system, through which the Department of Homeland Security will send automated telephone and/or e-mail messages to your employee when an E-Verify case is opened, processed, and when a Tentative or Final Non-confirmation is received.