Texas State Hires Must Now Be E-Verified to Prove Employment Eligibility

As of September 1, 2015, all potential hires for any state agency or public college in Texas must have their employment eligibility information run through the E-Verify employment verification system managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but employees of businesses contracting with the state will no longer be required to use E-Verify.  E-Verify compares information applicants submit on their Form I-9 to Social Security and Homeland Security records to help determine the employment eligibility of an applicant.  The Texas Workforce Commission will be charged with enforcing this new rule.

Texas is one of 22 states with that uses some version of the E-Verify system, however, other states like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah require all employers use E-Verify.  Though this new rule only applies to state agencies and public universities, tens of thousands of private businesses in Texas have been using E-Verify for several years. The USCIS has a database of all the companies that use the system. It shows whether the business has a contract with the federal government, where it is located and its size.