Siskind Susser is excited to announce that Lynn Susser was recently elected to ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers. ABIL is comprised of over 20 lawyers from top tier immigration practices with years of expertise and a comprehensive understanding of immigration law. For more information on ABIL, including a map of ABIL attorneys worldwide, visit their website.
The following articles are excerpts from ABIL’s monthly Immigration Insider, available here on their website.
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E-Verify Reminds Employers Not to Terminate Employees Based on Tentative SSA/DHS Nonconfirmations
E-Verify has issued a reminder that employers may not terminate employees because of a Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) until the Social Security Administration (SSA) and/or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reviewed the case and the TNC becomes a Final Nonconfirmation.
A DHS or SSA TNC means that the information the employer entered in E-Verify from a Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, did not match records available to DHS or SSA. A DHS or SSA TNC case result does not necessarily mean that a person is not authorized to work in the United States. The employer must give the employee an opportunity to take action to resolve the mismatch. If E-Verify cannot instantly confirm employment eligibility, it must manually review government records. E-Verify will try to do this within 48 hours to let the employer know whether or not the employee is authorized to work.
It is possible for E-Verify to issue a dual TNC, which means the case received a TNC result from both agencies at the same time because information entered into E-Verify does not match records available to both SSA and DHS. E Verify identifies the agency or agencies associated with the mismatch in the TNC Further Action Notice.
E-Verify noted that a TNC for an information mismatch against SSA records may result because:
- The employee has not updated his or her citizenship or immigration status with SSA
- The employee did not report a name change to SSA
- The employee’s name, Social Security number, or date of birth is incorrect in SSA records
- SSA records contain another type of mismatch
- The employer entered the employee’s information incorrectly in E-Verify
A case can result in a TNC with DHS because the employee’s:
- Name, Alien Number, Form I-94 number. and/or foreign passport number are incorrect in DHS records
- S. passport, passport card, driver’s license, state ID, or foreign passport information could not be verified
- Information was not updated in the employee’s DHS records • Citizenship or immigration status changed
- Record contains another type of error
- Information was entered incorrectly in E-Verify by the employer
Employers may not terminate, suspend, delay training, withhold or lower pay, or take any other adverse action against an employee because of a TNC until it becomes a Final Nonconfirmation.
If the employee chooses not to take action on the TNC, the employer may terminate employment with no civil or criminal liability, E-Verify said. The case can be treated as a Final Nonconfirmation and the employer should close the case in E Verify.
For information on this process, see https://www.e-verify.gov/employers/verificationprocess/tentative-nonconfirmations.
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USCIS Moving Forward With Proposal to Require H-1B Lottery Pre-Registration
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has sent a draft regulation to the Office of Management and Budget that would require employers, beginning in April 2019, to pre-register for the H-1B lottery. Other changes being considered include prioritizing H-1B visa number allocations based on criteria in a 2017 Trump executive order directing prioritization based on “the most skilled or highest-paid petition beneficiaries”; and changing the order of the H-1B visa lotteries so the chances for applicants with a master’s degree are increased. It is unclear when the draft regulation will appear in the Federal Register.
USCIS first proposed a pre-registration system in 2011. See https://www.uscis.gov/news/factsheets/uscis-seeks-public-comment-proposed-h-1b-registration-system-fact-sheet.
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USCIS Revises Validity Period for Report of Medical Exam and Vaccination Record
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that effective November 1, 2018, it has revised policy guidance for the validity period of Form I-693, Report of Medical Examination and Vaccination Record.
The updated policy requires applicants to submit a Form I-693 that is signed by a civil surgeon no more than 60 days before filing the underlying application for an immigration benefit. The Form I-693 would remain valid for a two-year period following the date the civil surgeon signed it. As such, USCIS is retaining the current maximum two-year validity period of Form I-693 but “calculating it in a different manner to both enhance operational efficiencies and reduce the number of requests to applicants for an updated Form I-693.”
USCIS officers use the form to determine whether an applicant for an immigration benefit in the United States is inadmissible under the health-related grounds of inadmissibility. By specifying that the I-693 must be signed no more than 60 days before the applicant files the underlying application for which the I-693 is required, the validity of the form “is more closely tied to the timing of the underlying application,” USCIS said.
Additionally, requiring submission of an I-693 that was signed no more than 60 days before the date the underlying application was filed may, in some cases, maximize the period of time the I-693 will be valid while the underlying application is under USCIS review, the agency said. “Officers will still have the discretion, as they have always had, to request a new Form I-693 if they have reason to believe an applicant may be inadmissible on the health-related grounds. Delays in adjudicating the underlying application will also be reduced if fewer requests for updated Forms I-693 are necessary,” USCIS noted.
The USCIS announcement is at https://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-policy-manual-update. Additional details are in a related USCIS policy alert at https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/Updates/20181016-I-693Validity.pdf.
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This newsletter was prepared with the assistance of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers (www.abil.com), of which Lynn Susser is an active member.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.