Dallas county jail now checking immigration status of inmates

All Dallas County Jail inmates will have their fingerprints run through a massive federal database to identify immigrants who can be deported. The jail began running fingerprints through the immigration database on Wednesday. Only seven agencies in the country were selected for the pilot program, including four jails in North carolina, and jails in Boston, Houston and Dallas. Click on the title of this post to link to the Fort Worth Star Telegram news article.

USCIS updates the E-verify requirement for federal contractors, to start 1/15/09

On November 13, 2008, the USCIS (formerly INS) updated their website regarding new E-verify requirements starting in 2009. Federal contractors and subcontractors will be required to begin using the USCIS’ E-Verify system starting Jan. 15, 2009, to verify their employees’ eligibility to legally work in the United States. The new rule implements a June 2008 Executive Order directing federal agencies to require that federal contractors agree to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their employees. The amended Executive Order reinforces the policy, first announced in 1996, that the federal government does business with companies that have a legal workforce. This new rule requires federal contractors to agree, through language inserted into their federal contracts, to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of all persons hired during a contract term, and to confirm the employment eligibility of federal contractors’ current employees who perform contract services for the federal government within the United States. Federal contracts awarded and solicitations issued after Jan. 15, 2009, will include a clause committing government contractors to use E-Verify.

More details are on the CIS website: http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/FAR_13Nov08.pdf and CIS FAQs are here: http://tinyurl.com/5e5lhl.