Sponsors (13)
The bill centralizes and expands mandatory electronic work‑authorization checks and interagency data sharing to reduce unauthorized employment and standardize enforcement, but it substantially raises privacy, compliance, and job‑disruption risks for immigrants and increases costs and legal exposure for employers—especially small businesses.
Most employers (including small businesses and federal contractors) will get a single, uniform federal E-Verify regime with clearer rules, timelines, a central point of contact for audits, and legal protections for good‑faith reliance, simplifying multi‑state compliance.
Employers and taxpayers will benefit from stronger detection and deterrence of unauthorized employment through expanded E‑Verify use, standardized identity/reverification timelines (3 days), weekly reporting of final nonconfirmations, and expanded data matches, which may reduce illegal hiring and protect wages.
Workers who get tentative nonconfirmations will have a formal contest process and specified timelines, giving individuals a clear administrative path to resolve mismatches before adverse action.
Millions of workers (especially immigrants and non‑native English speakers) face higher risk of job loss, wrongful termination, or work disruption if E‑Verify produces mistaken tentative or final nonconfirmations or reverification flags.
Expanding mandatory E‑Verify, tight 3‑day verification/reverification deadlines, central audits, rebuttable presumptions, higher fines, debarment, and criminal penalties greatly increase compliance costs and legal risks for employers—especially small businesses and firms that rely on government contracts.
Broad interagency data sharing and weekly transfers of personal data (IRS/SSA/no‑match, earnings suspense, final nonconfirmations) to ICE and other agencies substantially raise privacy, surveillance, and misuse risks for millions of workers.
Based on analysis of 26 sections of legislative text.
Requires nationwide mandatory use of E‑Verify for federal agencies, contractors, designated critical employers, and all employers for new hires within one year, and strengthens enforcement, penalties, reporting, and interagency data sharing.
Introduced March 26, 2025 by Charles Ernest Grassley · Last progress March 26, 2025
Requires nationwide, mandatory use of the federal E‑Verify employment eligibility system by federal agencies, federal contractors, designated critical employers, and all employers for new hires within one year of enactment, and expands and toughens enforcement, penalties, and data sharing to identify unauthorized workers. It directs DHS to improve E‑Verify reliability, privacy protections, algorithmic fraud detection, and employer interfaces; creates an ICE Employer Compliance Inspection Center to centralize audits; increases criminal and civil penalties and allows debarment for repeat violators; and requires interagency programs and weekly reporting to support immigration enforcement. Also directs DHS to study simplifying or eliminating paper I‑9 requirements, sets up a small business demonstration to provide public internet access for rural/underserved employers, and mandates interagency data sharing among SSA, IRS, DHS, and Treasury to help detect unauthorized workers.