US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced this week that Self Check, a free online service which is part of the E-Verify system and allows workers to check their own employment eligibility status, is now available in all 50 states. Along with all 50 states, it is also available in Washington, D.C., and the US territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.

The Self Check program was initially launched in March 2011 by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. Over the past year, it has expanded to become available in the entire US. The government completed their national expansion of the program one month earlier than planned; They originally estimated it would be available in all 50 states only by March 2012.

“We are pleased to complete, ahead of schedule, our expansion of this important tool for employees,” said Mayorkas. “Since our initial launch in March, approximately 67,000 people have used Self Check and we anticipate that participation will dramatically increase with service now available to individuals across the country.”

Self Check was created so immigrants could check their own employment eligibility status. Additionally, the program gives guidance on how to correct your DHS and Social Security records. The program, which is available in English and Spanish, requires the following information to verify your status:

• Your name, date of birth, and address.
• You will need to answer demographic and/or financial related questions. These questions could include information about past addresses, banks that you may have had dealings with, etc. This information is needed before you can continue with the Self Check process. The government will not keep records of which questions were asked or how these questions were answered.
• Information that will prove your eligibility to work in the United States. This will include your Social Security number and, based on your citizenship status and documentation, information such as your Alien Registration Number, document number, or I-94 Number.

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The 3/10 Year Bar
Section 212(a)(9) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that any noncitizen who after having been unlawfully present in the United States for 180-364 days and then voluntarily departs the country before they are placed in removal proceedings is not allowed to return to the United States for three (3) years. Similarly, a noncitizen who has been unlawfully present in the United States for one year or longer and then departs or is deported is not allowed to return to the United States for ten (10) years. These are known as the 3-year-bar and the 10-year-bar. There are some exceptions for asylum applicants, battered spouses, certain family unity beneficiaries and minor children. Furthermore, the unlawful period can be tolled for good cause and non-frivolous requests for extensions. Otherwise, if these noncitizens wish to return to the United States, they must first obtain a waiver from the U.S. government. The Department of Homeland Security has discretion to waive the 3/10-year-bars if the noncitizen can show that his U.S. citizen or legal resident spouse or parent will suffer extreme hardship if he is not allowed to return to the U.S.

Catch 22
For many foreigners who have accrued unlawful presence in the United States but are otherwise eligible for an immigrant visa, they are caught in a “Catch 22” situation. On the one hand, they are not allowed to apply for a green card within the United States because of their unlawful status. On the other, they do not want to leave the country for fear that they would not be able to return to the U.S. because of the 3/10-year-bars. Even if they are eligible to apply for a waiver based on hardship of their spouses and/or parents, they are afraid that the waiver might not be approved. The current policy is that the wavier must be filed with an overseas DHS office. In short, they are stuck between two equally undesirable options.

The New Proposal
The DHS recently announced that it intends to publish in the Federal Register a proposal to revise the procedures for determining the unlawful presence (family unity) waivers for spouses and children of U.S. citizens. The new proposal creates an “in-country processing” mechanism for noncitizens who are spouses and children of U.S. citizens to file the unlawful presence waiver. A noncitizen who has accrued unlawful presence would be able to apply for the waiver from within the United States. This “in-country processing” proposal would permit USCIS to grant a provisional waiver. Applicants would still be required to depart from the U.S. before receiving a final approval on their application. By pre-processing the family unity waiver, the applicant’s waiting time will be shortened. Currently applicants face a long wait when seeking a waiver outside the U.S. The goal of this new proposal is to encourage more noncitizens to come forward to file their immigrant and waiver petitions in the United States.

This process, however, does not change the legal requirements for immigrant visa petition or the family unity waiver application. The “law” regarding immigrant visas and waiver adjudication has not been changed. The change is only procedural in nature. Further, it is important to note that the proposal will not cover spouses and children of legal permanent residents. They must still follow the existing procedure and apply for a waiver at an overseas U.S. consulate office. Finally, applicants must not rely on this proposal yet until it is finalized. Thus far, the DHS has only published a statement of intent to propose the change. It is expected that the change will not be finalized until the end of 2012. Interested foreigners may start gathering documentary evidence to establish their eligibility for a waiver but should not act hastily before they have discussed their case with a qualified immigration attorney.

There are a million people who dreams day in and day out of immigrating to the United States. But trust me; this is just the easy part. Once you have legally immigrated to the United States then all the laws Federal laws would be applicable on you too like on any other American. You would be liable to pay all the applicable taxes which you are liable for, and some questions like the SSN, the ITIN, determining the alien tax status, and the taxation of the resident and the nonresident aliens would not take very long to steal away your sweet night sleep.

Mentioned here under are the answers to some of the questions mentioned above. Trust me these are just the starting. But eventually as you get used to these they would not be bothering you so much. So let’s move to the first topic.

1. SSN Application – SSN or the Social Security Number is very important for a person living in the United States. Though we are not going to dig much in to it but let’s just keep it limited to the fact that your eligibility to file for an SSN depends on whether or not the DHS has granted you permission to work in the United States.
2. ITIN – You can call the ITIN as a substitute for the SSN to some extent. In other words if you are required to file for the federal tax return and in case you do not have the SSN in that case you would require an Individual Taxpayer’s Identification Number”.
3. Determining Alien Tax Status – Chances are that the IRS guys would deem you to be a resident alien in the United States even if you are not a lawful permanent resident of the United States, or you do not hold a Green Card. A detailed peek in to the IRS would help you understand how the mechanism works and the status of your alien tax.
4. Taxation for the NR Aliens and the Resident aliens in the United States – As far as the taxation is concerned, for a typical non resident alien; they are just subjected to the income tax part only, to the extent of their income source only in the United States. However when we look in to the situation of a resident alien the story changes a lot. These people are subjected to the normal federal taxes as is done for any other United States citizen.

These are just the beginning and trust me there is a lot more than that meets the eye, related to the above mentioned topics. Thus your best bet for the above mentioned questions would be to dig in to the IRS. Or wait till we happen to talk about each one of these in details later.

This E Verify system is a totally web based system. The way it works is that it compares the data from the I-9 verification form, with the federal government data bases. And eventually produces a nod from the Department of Homeland Security, about the eligibility of the person concerned to work in the United States. This is a service run by the DHS in collaboration with the social security administration. This is an extremely careful step that has been taken by the United States government. To ensure there are no flaws in the employment system. This E Verify system would be responsible to figure out if any unauthorized alien is working in the United States or even helping them in any manner. The E Verify system would also help the federal employees uphold the prevailing laws of the country related to the federal immigration laws and total compliance to them.

The Case 2007 013, which is the Federal Acquisition rule, would create provision of the full usage of the E Verify system as a mandate for not only the federal contractors and the sub contractors of the federal departments but also for the beneficiaries of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Post the 8^th of Sep the usage of the E Verify system would be introduced as a clause and a mandate for the fore said employers. The companies that would be awarded a federal contract would be required to enroll themselves in the E Verify system within the next 30 days and verify the status of all the existing and the newly hired employees.

It has been recorded that since Oct 2008, as many as 146,000 participating employers have verified their employees at more than 551,000 sites Since then the number of verification queries that have been run shoots to more than 7.5 million and now the status is more than 97% of all the queries are automatically confirmed as permitted to work within a span of twenty four hours or less.