As of March 1, 2018, E-Verify will be deleting transaction records that are over 10 years old which means employers won’t have access to E-Verify records that were created on or before Dec. 31, 2007. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has created a Historic Records Report that users can download and save for archival purposes. The report contains information about each E-Verify case that will be purged. Note that this report will only be available through Feb. 28, 2018, so employers must download the report before then.

USCIS encourages employers take measures to archive their data and to record the E-Verify case verification number on the corresponding Form I-9. According to § Sec. 274a.4 of Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations, “[a]n employer or a recruiter or referrer for a fee for employment who shows good faith compliance with the employment verification requirements of Sec. 274a.2(b) . . . shall have established a rebuttable affirmative defense that the person or entity has not violated section 274A(a)(1)(A) of the Act with respect to such hiring, recruiting, or referral.” Since the E-Verify records will be deleted, employers will have to rely on their own archives to support a defense that it successfully received a work authorized result for a new employee who is later identified as unauthorized.

It is advised that employers download the Historic Records Report from E-Verify and should plan on doing so at the end of each calendar year.