A client running a 3PL operation in Smyrna asked us something last fall that we hear more often than you'd expect. They had a worker they wanted placed immediately, someone who'd worked at their facility through a different agency the year before. The client said the onboarding was done, they knew the person, could we just place them without running E-Verify first.
We said no. The conversation that followed is worth having before that moment comes up.
In a staffing arrangement, the staffing agency is the legal employer and runs E-Verify. The client employer doesn't open parallel cases for placed workers. Georgia's mandate under O.C.G.A. § 36-60-6 requires agencies with 11 or more full-time employees to enroll in E-Verify and verify all new full-time hires. Cases must be opened within three business days of the employee's first day. Clients can't ask the agency to skip a case, and the agency can't comply if they do: selective verification is a federal compliance violation regardless of client preference.
Who Runs E-Verify in a Staffing Arrangement
The rule is straightforward: whoever completes Form I-9 runs E-Verify. In a staffing arrangement, the agency completes the I-9 because the agency is the legal employer. So the agency runs E-Verify. The client site doesn't open parallel cases for placed workers and isn't expected to.
That setup simplifies things for most operations managers. If you have 40 temp workers on your floor through us, your E-Verify obligation for those 40 people is zero. It's ours. Your obligation covers your own direct hires, and only if you meet Georgia's threshold (more on that below). You don't need your own E-Verify enrollment to manage a temp workforce, though you need to confirm the agency you're working with actually maintains theirs.
Two things the client site can't do, and understanding them matters. First: you can't ask the agency to skip E-Verify on a specific worker. USCIS is explicit that client requests don't override the obligation. The Smyrna client knew the worker, vouched for them, needed them that day. None of that creates an exception. If the agency is enrolled in E-Verify and completes a Form I-9, they must run the case, full stop. An agency that agrees to skip it at your request is creating a selective-verification violation, and you're the one who asked for it.
Second: you can't run a parallel E-Verify case for placed workers yourself. A client employer who collects I-9 documents from temp workers at orientation (even with good intentions) or opens separate E-Verify cases is implicitly claiming employer status for those workers. That muddies the co-employment question and creates the kind of documentation trail that complicates audits. We stopped that practice at two accounts where clients were doing exactly this. It wasn't malicious. It was unfamiliarity with how the structure works.
What Georgia's Law Adds on Top
Federal E-Verify is voluntary for most private employers not subject to a federal contract. Georgia adds a state layer.
Under O.C.G.A. § 36-60-6, private employers with more than 10 full-time employees (11 or more people working 35 or more hours a week, measured as of January 1 each year) must enroll in E-Verify and use it for all new full-time hires. Enforcement runs through county and city business license renewal. If you can't produce a signed affidavit of E-Verify compliance, your occupational tax certificate can be denied. Penalties for repeat violations run up to $2,500 per company and $2,500 per unverified employee, plus a $500-per-day penalty after a final order of violation.
For a staffing agency operating in Georgia, the mandate applies to the agency, not the client site. We're the employer of record; our headcount determines whether the mandate triggers. Most Georgia staffing operations clear the 11-employee threshold. We do, and we run E-Verify on all of our accounts under the state mandate.
The client site has its own parallel obligation for its direct hires if it hits the threshold on January 1. That doesn't change based on how many temp workers are on the floor. A client with 8 direct employees and 30 temps from us still needs to check their January headcount each year, because crossing 10 full-time employees makes them a covered employer for their own hiring. Some clients conflate the two populations when they count, and end up either enrolling when they don't have to or skipping it when they do.
There's also a public contractor layer from O.C.G.A. § 13-10-91: any company contracting with a Georgia public entity for labor or services worth more than $2,499.99 must be enrolled in E-Verify and submit a contractor affidavit. That obligation flows down through every subcontractor tier. More clients than you'd expect have public contracts they didn't think made them subject to this.
The Timing Question Unique to Staffing
E-Verify cases must be opened within three business days of the employee's first day of employment. That's clear for a conventional hire. It gets complicated for temp workers who enter a labor pool before they're placed anywhere.
USCIS guidance allows staffing agencies to use either of two dates as "first day of employment": the date the worker accepts the offer and enters the pool, or the date the worker first reports to a client assignment. Both are permissible. But the agency has to be consistent across all workers. Choosing by pool entry for some and first assignment for others is where agencies get into trouble.
We used to count first assignment day as our starting point. At the time it felt practical — the worker wasn't employed anywhere yet in any operational sense. A 2024 review of USCIS guidance made clear that if we were completing Form I-9 at pool entry (which we are, and which is correct), the three-business-day window starts at pool entry, not at first placement. We changed the process. Cases now go in the same week a worker signs on with us, even if their first placement doesn't start for days.
The practical effect for clients: a worker arriving at your facility Monday morning should already have a completed E-Verify case in the agency's system. It's a reasonable question to ask your agency when you're evaluating them: what date do you count as day one, and do you apply it consistently? An agency that can't answer that clearly either doesn't know or is making it up by placement.
One other timing note: USCIS does allow staffing agencies to open an E-Verify case before the worker is placed, as long as a Form I-9 has been completed first. Pre-placement verification is fine. You can't run E-Verify before the I-9 is done, but once it's done, the case can be opened regardless of whether an assignment exists yet.
When E-Verify Returns a TNC Mid-Assignment
A Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) means the data the agency submitted to E-Verify didn't match DHS or Social Security Administration records. It doesn't mean the worker isn't authorized. The most common causes in our placements: name mismatches (a worker who changed their last name after marriage and the SSA records haven't updated), SSNs recently issued that haven't fully propagated in the federal databases, and data entry errors like a transposed digit or an abbreviated first name.
When a TNC comes in, the agency must notify the worker privately and provide the Further Action Notice within 10 federal government working days. The worker then has the right to contest. If they contest, they have up to eight government workdays to contact the relevant agency. During that window, the employer (the staffing agency) cannot take adverse action based solely on the TNC — no termination, no removal from the assignment. Doing so triggers the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
For the client employer, this plays out on your floor. The worker stays while the agency manages the resolution. We can't tell you the details of what's happening (privacy rules apply). What we can tell you is that the worker's status isn't changed by the TNC itself, only by a Final Nonconfirmation.
We had a TNC come back on a worker three weeks into a placement at a recycling facility in Conyers. The site manager wanted them pulled immediately. We had to explain that we couldn't do that legally until either the case resolved as Employment Authorized or a Final Nonconfirmation came through. The mismatch was a name-change issue. The case resolved as authorized in six days. The worker was on the floor the whole time. The site manager understood by the end, but it would have been a better conversation if we'd covered TNC handling before the placement started.
If a Final Nonconfirmation (FNC) is issued, the situation is different. An FNC means E-Verify has concluded the worker is not authorized for employment. At that point the agency must close the case and cannot continue employing the worker. What happens to the assignment at that point should be addressed in your staffing agreement, not improvised after the fact.
What to Confirm Before Work Starts
These are the questions worth putting in your pre-contract conversation, or in the contract itself if your agency will agree to written commitments.
Does the agency run E-Verify on all placements, regardless of client site or client preference? If they vary their practice by account (for example, running cases only at sites that explicitly ask for it), that's selective verification. It's a federal compliance issue, and the exposure from it attaches to the placement, not to which client site requested it.
What date does the agency count as first day of employment (pool entry or first assignment)? Either is permissible. Inconsistency is not. Know which answer they give and whether it's been applied uniformly across their placements.
What's the agency's TNC protocol for active placements? Who contacts the worker? Who notifies the client? How does the client know the timeline without getting details they're not supposed to have? A staffing partner who hasn't thought this through will figure it out at your expense.
What happens when a Final Nonconfirmation is issued? How quickly are you notified? What does the transition look like? What's the agency's obligation to find a replacement, and what's yours if you need to continue operations while they do?
Can the agency document their E-Verify enrollment and compliance with Georgia's state mandate? An agency that won't put this in writing is one you should press harder on. We put our enrollment documentation and compliance confirmation in writing for any new account that asks. It takes about 15 minutes and it's a reasonable ask.
For the full picture on how I-9 and E-Verify interact in Georgia, including what the March 2026 penalty reclassification changed and how to run a self-audit of your own I-9 portfolio, our I-9 and E-Verify compliance guide for Georgia employers covers both systems and how they differ. And for what happens when ICE issues a Notice of Inspection at a facility that uses temp workers, including how the production obligation splits between the agency and the client, the I-9 audit prep guide for staffing employers covers that scenario in full.
We staff warehouse, recycling, hospitality, and light industrial operations across 27 accounts in Gainesville, Lawrenceville, Conyers, Smyrna, and the Atlanta MSA. E-Verify compliance runs on all of them under Georgia's mandate. If you're evaluating a Georgia staffing partner and want to understand how we handle E-Verify before signing anything, Schedule a Call and we'll walk through it with you.
