All businesses in Alabama must enroll in the federal E-Verify employment eligibility verification system by April 1, 2012, and this is no April Fools’ Joke. According to ‘The Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act’ (H.B. 56), considered by many to be the toughest immigration enforcement measure in the country to date, every Alabama business – regardless of size – must enroll in E-Verify by the April 1 deadline to be in compliance with the law or else they could lose their licenses for failing to abide by the law. The full text of Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act is at: http://www.openbama.org/index.php/bill/fulltext/3154. (more…)

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the free online service of the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system called “Self Check” that allows workers to check their own employment eligibility status is now available in all 50 United states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. For more information about Self Check, please visit: http://www.uscis.gov/selfcheck. (more…)

To better protect the Social Security numbers (SSNs) of deceased Americans from identity theft, the “Keeping IDs Safe Act” was recently introduced in the U.S. House by Representative Sam Johnson (R-Texas), according to a press release on Johnson’s website. Also known as the “KIDS Act,” the legislature would make it harder for identity thieves to steal SSNs of deceased children and others by limiting access to the Death Master File publicly released by the Social Security Administration (SSA). (more…)

Despite California Governor Jerry Brown recently signing into law the Employment Acceleration Act of 2011 (A.B. 1236) that prohibits cities and counties in the state from requiring employers to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system such as E-Verify beginning January 1, 2012, an article in the Contra Costa Times reveals that more than 26,000 employers in the Golden State have signed up for the federal E-Verify program that checks if newly hired employers are legally eligible to work in the United States. (more…)

The state of Minnesota is once again requiring its big contractors to verify the legal right of their employees to work in the United States by using the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system that checks information from new hires against federal databases of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA), according to a report from Minnesota Public Radio.  Already in effect, the new law requires private businesses providing more than $50,000 worth of services to the state to enroll in E-Verify and check the work status of new hires using the E-Verify system. (more…)