By: Bruce E. Buchanan, Sebelist Buchanan Law

On March 4, 2021, E-Verify updated the Social Security Administration (SSA) Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) process. Now, employees who receive an SSA TNC with a citizenship mismatch have the option to call DHS (888-897-7781) within eight (8) federal government working days from the referral, to resolve their cases, instead of waiting an indefinite time to visit an SSA field office.

Citizenship mismatch cases usually occur when an employee, who is a naturalized US citizen and previously received a Social Security number, fails to notify the SSA of their new status as a naturalized citizen. Then, the E-Verify system will often report a mismatch with the data coming from SSA.

A citizenship mismatch TNC can be discovered by examining the Final Action Notice (FAN) and finding the section entitled “Reason for this Notice.” Within that section, you will see this language – “SSA was unable to confirm your U.S. citizenship. The citizenship status selected for this employee did not match the SSA records.”

If you are concerned about your company’s immigration compliance, I invite you to read The I-9 and E-Verify Handbook, a book that I co-authored with Greg Siskind, available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0997083379.