The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that the Obama Administration fully supports the E-Verify Federal Contractor Rule, which is currently slated to go into effect on September 8, 2009.  Up until now, the Administration had not formally expressed an opinion on the rule, while pushing back the effective date several times this year.

“After a careful review, the Administration will push ahead with full implementation of the rule, which will apply to federal solicitations and contract awards Government-wide starting on September 8, 2009.”

As part of today’s announcement, DHS also indicated that it will rescind its controversial Social Security No-match regulation which would have required employers to undertake a series of steps for employees whose names and Social Security numbers do not match.

In related news, the Senate voted on (and passed) an amendment today, offered by Senator Sessions, to the DHS 2010 appropriations bill which would permanently reauthorize E-Verify and codify the Federal Contractor rule. The Senate now has to approve the entire DHS appropriations bill and reconcile it with the House version (which had only a 2-year extension of E-Verify and no Federal Contractor provisions).