Older E-Verify Records Will Be Deleted April 1

​U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will dispose of E-Verify records that are more than 10 years old—those created on or before Dec. 31, 2011—by April 1, 2022.

E-Verify employers have until March 31 to download case information from the Historic Records Report if they want to retain information about their older E-Verify cases.

USCIS created the Historic Records Report for users to download and save for archival purposes. The report contains information about each E-Verify case that will be purged.

Each year since 2014, data that is more than 10 years old is deleted from the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system. The data purge is conducted to comply with the National Archives and Records Administration's retention and disposal schedule to minimize security and privacy risks associated with retaining personally identifiable information.

Employers should download the Historic Records Report from E-Verify at the end of each calendar year.

USCIS recommends that employers annotate their Forms I-9 with the E-Verify case verification number and retain the Historic Records Report with the corresponding forms. The agency itself will retain E-Verify records associated with any current, ongoing investigations.

"If an employer did not record the E-Verify case verification number on the employee's I-9 form or attach a copy of the case details page to the form, now is the time to do so," said Sonseere Goldenberg, an attorney with Nilan Johnson Lewis in Minneapolis. "We recommend downloading any information on your past or current employees before the deadline, even if you have no currently affected employees. It is always best to retain this information in the event of an I-9 audit in the future."