Legal Guidelines
Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides detailed procedural requirements that employers must follow before hiring any individual. All employers, regardless of the size of their respective business, must verify the identity and work authorization of every new hire, citizen or alien. This includes reviewing documents which establish the employee's legal identity and his/her elgibility to be employed in the United States. If the employee is being hired for three or fewer days, verification must be done immediately when employment commences.
Section 247A of the Immigration and Nationality Act
What Documents Should I Ask For?
Employers verify a new hire's work eligibility by completing an I-9 form and examining certain ID documents.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau of the Department of Homeland Security has several links to guide you in this area.
Who's A Legal Employee?
As an employer, you want to do the right thing. But how can you insure that your prospective hire has a legal right to work in the United States?
The simple solution: use E-Verify (formerly Basic Pilot Program), the Department of Homeland Security's Electronic Employment Verification Program. E-Verify enables employers to quickly and easily verify the work authorization of their newly hired employees.
E-Verify does this by providing access to the Verification Information System (VIS) database. This database is a nationally accessible database of immigration status information, including more than 60 million records.
As a pilot program accessible to employers in states with the largest number of immigrants, it achieved great success and positive ratings from businesses. That encouraged Congress in late 2003 to pass a law that expanded the program to include employers in all 50 states by October 1, 2004.