College of Education and Health Professions

New Process Concerns Hiring Employees

Posted by Brandi Maples on 2/10/2009

Faculty & Staff:

Please be advised that when hiring new employees (full-time appointed, graduate assistant, hourly or work study), the individual that you wish to hire must meet with Sherrie Starkey (or the Office of the Associate Dean for Administration) within three days of their date of hire. The University of Arkansas recently implemented a new on-line program called E-Verify that verifies the employee's eligibility for employment. The new program is mandatory for any federally funded institutions and will receive penalties for not processing a verification query on a new employee within three days of hire. Please see below for a brief description of the new on-line verification process.

Effective February 1, 2009, the University of Arkansas will initiate the use of E-Verify, an online system offering a fast, free, and user-friendly means to electronically verify employment eligibility for newly hired employees, and automating many of the manual procedures associated with processing I-9 forms. E-Verify represents a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration and is overseen by the Office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

E-Verify links directly to Social Security data and other Federal databases and is designed to take the subjectivity out of verifying employment eligibility. We anticipate that the new system will help to standardize and streamline the entire employment eligibility verification process.

A few important facts must be noted regarding the move to E-Verify:

  • The E-Verify system does not replace the requirement to complete an I-9 form for all employees within 3 days of hire.
  • The E-Verify query must be made within 3 business days of the new hire's actual start date, and after the I-9 form has been completed.
  • E-Verify only verifies a new hire's employment eligibility, not immigration status.
  • E-Verify helps determine the employment eligibility and the validity of the employee's social security number (if applicable).
  • At this time we are only required to verify employees hired after February 1, 2009.
  • E-Verify is not a pre-screening tool for applicants or prospective employees.
  • E-Verify verifies the following information:
    1. Employee name
    2. Date of birth
    3. Alien # or I-94# (if applicable)
    4. Citizenship status attested to on the I-9 form
  • If any of the information cannot be verified by the system then the employee is notified of the tentative non-confirmation response, referred to the Social Security Administration office to contest the finding and is given a referral letter with specific instructions. The employee has 8 workdays from the referral date to contest. If the employee chooses not to contest the finding, it is considered a final non-confirmation and the employee must be terminated immediately.
  • If an employee chooses to contest the finding then they may remain working until the issue is resolved or a final non-confirmation has been issued.


Please contact me if you have any questions regarding this new process. Thanks!

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Brandi Maples
Director of Financial Affairs
College of Education and Health Professions
301 Graduate Education Building
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701

We want to hear from you. Please e-mail comments and feedback to Brandi Maples at maples@uark.edu.