In anticipation of the E-Verify federal contractor mandate, the USCIS will be releasing a Supplemental Guide to address specific E-Verify requirements and time periods for federal contractors and subcontractors who are impacted by the rule. The E-Verify Tutorial (available online to E-Verify participants) already makes reference to this document (see image to the right), which will be located in the Online Resources section of your E-Verify account. We’ll make sure to publish this document on our blog as soon as it’s released.

In the meantime, the E-Verify refresher tutorial provides instructions for employers who are already enrolled in E-Verify on how to notify DHS that they are a federal contractor. We’re reproducing some of these instructions below. Of particular interest, is that employers are not required to sign a new MOU.

1. You must update your profile to indicate that you are a Federal contractor. As a Federal contractor, you will be subject to the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which includes language on the verification of “employees assigned to the contract.”

2. If you are already participating in E-Verify, you are not required to sign the new MOU. However, once you have indicated that you are a Federal Contractor in E-Verify, you will be subject to the rules and requirements associated with this profile and have access to all materials specific to Federal Contractors (and verification of “employees assigned to the contract”).

3. If you modify your organization type to and from “Federal Contractor” on the company information page, it will affect your users who are in the process of taking the tutorial. These users will be redirected to and must start over with the appropriate tutorial. Also, if you modify your organization type to a non-Federal Contractor value, existing employees must not be verified.