E-Verify Program Data Collection

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Office of Policy and Strategy

Washington, DC 20529-2000

October 2010

Dear Employer:

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for overseeing procedures for employers’ verification of all new hires for their eligibility to work in the United States. All employers are required to complete and retain I-9 documentation on their new hires. In addition, {THIS STATE} has mandated that its employers must also utilize the Internet-based E-Verify Program, administered jointly by USCIS and the Social Security Administration.

We have asked The University of Arizona to conduct an evaluation on behalf of USCIS of the E-Verify employment verification program in {THIS STATE}. Your company may or may not have begun using E-Verify to confirm work eligibility for new hires but, regardless, we would appreciate your participation in this research. The goals of the evaluation are to understand the knowledge and perception of the E-Verify program and its utility and barriers to utilization of E-Verify. Congress is interested in this information to help it determine whether E-Verify should be made mandatory for a larger group of employers and, if so, what modifications to the current Program need to be made. Your participation in this evaluation will, therefore, be important to the future direction of employment verification in this country.

As part of this evaluation, we have authorized The University of Arizona to conduct an independent survey of 900 employers once a year for the next three years, some of which are using E-Verify. We have told The University of Arizona to treat all responses to this survey as highly confidential, to the extent allowable by law. The University of Arizona will only provide us, and others who are not part of the University’s evaluation team, with summary results. These summaries will not permit identification of individual respondents, companies, corporate names, or locations. We plan to publish the final report with the survey results on the Web; this will give you an opportunity to see how the information that you and others provide is being used to improve E-Verify.

I would very much appreciate your full cooperation with The University of Arizona’s request that you participate in this important evaluation, entitled the E-Verify Employer Survey. On behalf of USCIS, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation in this important research. If you have any concerns regarding this evaluation of the Program, please call Natasha McCann, Program Manager, or me at (202) 272-8122.

Sincerely,

Tiffany Lightbourn, Ph.D.

Chief, Research and Evaluation Division

Office of Policy and Strategy