USCIS has announced a new requirement that E-Verify employers take action on Tentative Nonconfirmations (TNCs) within 10 business days of issuance. The 10 days are defined as 10 federal government working days.
When an employer enters a new hire’s information and receives a TNC, it must provide notice to the employee and then the employee chooses whether to contest the TNC or not. At that point, the employer should update the E-Verify case to indicate the employee’s choice.
Previously, E-Verify did not put a specific deadline on when the case had to be updated with this information. This resulted in many TNC cases remaining open without action for a long time. So USCIS has added a deadline to ensure that cases keep moving forward.
This does not mean that the TNC must be completely resolved within 10 days. It just means that the employee must make a choice and the employer must update the E-Verify case accordingly within 10 days. If the employee chooses to contest the TNC, then the case will remain open until it is resolved by the government - and there is no deadline for that to happen.
To summarize, these are the actions an employer must take within 10 days after issuance of a TNC:
Notify your employee of their TNC result as soon as possible.
Give your employee a copy of the Further Action Notice.
Review the Further Action Notice with your employee in private and have them confirm whether the information listed at the top is correct.
If the information is incorrect, close the case and select the statement indicating the information was not correct. After the case is closed, create a new case for your employee with the correct information.
If the information is correct, proceed to the next step.
Tell the employee he or she has to decide whether to take action on the TNC by the 10th federal government working day after the TNC is issued.
If your employee does not give you their decision by the end of the 10th day, then you close the case. The updated E-Verify User Manual confirms that E-Verify will be unable to confirm the person’s authorization to work, and the employer can then terminate their employment.
If the employee chooses not to take action on the TNC, the employer will update E-Verify accordingly, close the case, and may terminate employment.
For the last possibility, if the employee chooses to contest the TNC, the employer will update E-Verify accordingly and follow the process indicated to provide the employee instructions on what to do next. The employer then waits for a case resolution in E-Verify, which can take days, weeks, or even months.
E-Verify is often a quick and simple system, but when a TNC is issued the process becomes much more complicated and employers are in danger of breaking E-Verify rules or unlawfully terminating employment. Violating E-Verify rules can result in additional audits of the employer’s E-Verify, I-9, and other practices, and can even result in being kicked out of the E-Verify program altogether. If you operate in a state that requires enrollment in E-Verify, you could lose your ability to continue to do business if you are kicked out of the program.
Thankfully, you can put clear practices in place to avoid such a drastic result. Give us a call if you’d like to make sure your business is protected!