Understanding Your E-Verify Case: Statuses and What Each One Needs From You

Purpose

After Form I-9 is completed and signed, UZIO creates an E-Verify case and tracks it through its full lifecycle. This article explains how a case is created, what each E-Verify status means, and the action you take at each stage. UZIO shows a live E-Verify status next to the employee's I-9 (E-Verify) form so you always know where the case stands.

You'll come to this page for one of two reasons: a status appeared that you don't recognise, or a reminder email told you a case needs action. Find the status in the table below. The third column is the whole answer. Most statuses need nothing from you at all.

Who can do this: Any employer user with access to the employee's I-9 document can create and work E-Verify cases (typically the Employer Admin). Case actions are offered on the employee's I-9 form.

Prerequisites:

• Your organization is enrolled in E-Verify through UZIO (see E-Verify Overview and Enrollment).
• The employee has completed Form I-9 Section 1 and you have completed and signed Section 2.

Creating an E-Verify case

1. The employee completes Section 1 of Form I-9, and you complete and sign Section 2.
2. UZIO shows a pop-up asking whether to create the E-Verify case. (This pop-up appears only if your organization has the E-Verify module enabled.)
3. Select Yes. UZIO validates that all required I-9 fields are present and that the document information matches the selected document types, then initiates the case.
4. UZIO transmits the case details to E-Verify. Submission is not instant. The case waits in a queued state and is sent automatically by a submission job that runs every hour. In practice a case sits here for up to about an hour. No employer action is needed while it waits.
5. Once submitted, E-Verify begins the federal verification process.

E-Verify statuses

UZIO displays the following statuses next to the I-9 (E-Verify) form. The status names below are the exact labels UZIO shows.

Resolving a Tentative Non-Confirmation (TNC)

1. UZIO notifies the employee when a TNC is issued. The employee can view it in their web portal under Documents > Tax and Compliance > I-9 (E-Verify status).
2. The employee opens the E-Verify status to see the TNC detail and resolution date, and decides whether to contest.
3. If the employee contests (Yes): UZIO sends the response to E-Verify. The employee must then contact DHS (or SSA, if the mismatch relates to Social Security records) and follow all instructions, within the federal workdays shown on the resolution date. Failure to act may result in a Final Non-Confirmation.
• SSA resolution: https://secure.ssa.gov/ICON/main.jsp
• How to process a TNC mismatch: https://www.e-verify.gov/employees/tentative-nonconfirmation-overview/how-to-process-a-tentative-nonconfirmation-mismatch
4. If the employee does not contest (No): UZIO sends the response to E-Verify, which returns a Final Non-Confirmation.

You can download the Further Action Notice (Download Further Action) and the completed I-9 (Download Document) at any point.

The conversation with your employee

This is the part that goes wrong most often, and it is a conversation, not a form:

1. Meet in private. A mismatch is confidential.
2. Hand over the Further Action Notice and read it together. It is available in Spanish and other languages on e-verify.gov.
3. Explain the choice: take action to resolve the mismatch, or not. The decision is the employee's alone; do not advise them which to pick, and do not imply a preference.
4. Record their decision in UZIO.
5. Change nothing about their job. No termination, suspension, schedule cut, pay change, or delayed training while the case is unresolved.

When and why a case must be reassigned

A signed Form I-9 cannot be altered under federal compliance rules. When critical information is wrong (for example incorrect Section 2 document details, the wrong document type, or a data mismatch found after submission), you cannot fix it by editing. Instead:

1. Provide a valid case-closure reason and close the existing E-Verify case.
2. Reassign a new, blank Form I-9 to the employee from Documents > Tax and Compliance > Assign Document(s) > I-9 Form.
3. UZIO warns you that the current I-9 will be permanently discarded and retained only for audit history.
4. The employee completes and signs the new I-9. A new E-Verify case can then be created with the corrected information.

Common problems

Can the employee keep working while the case is open?

Yes. An employee may continue working while a case is in Tentative Non Confirmation (if they contested it), Case in Continuance, or Needs More Time. Do not terminate, suspend, reduce hours, delay a start date, or take any other adverse action because of an open case or a mismatch. Doing so is itself a violation, independent of how the case eventually resolves.

My case has been Queued for hours

Some waiting is normal. Cases are transmitted on an hourly run rather than instantly, and Queued means E-Verify's own systems are still processing the case. E-Verify normally clears Queued within 24 hours and says it can take up to three federal working days.

Two situations are worth reporting. A case that has sat in Awaiting E-verify Submission or Draft for several hours has missed more than one hourly run and is stuck, not waiting. A case that stays Queued beyond three federal working days usually means E-Verify itself was slow or unreachable; UZIO records those outages separately from case results, so the problem is not your data. There is nothing you can do from your side in either situation. See Still stuck? below.

The case shows Unconfirmed Data. Can I fix it myself?

Not from the employer portal. E-Verify has asked for specific fields to be confirmed or corrected, and UZIO performs that step with E-Verify as your Employer Agent when you ask UZIO Support. Check every flagged field against the original document first (see the Warning under the status table), then send the case number and the corrected values. Until the case moves on or is closed, the employee's I-9 cannot be reassigned. If the data cannot be confirmed because the original I-9 itself is wrong, the path is to close the case and reassign a new I-9. See Reassigning a Form I-9.

Photo Match says no photo is available

Choose the "no photo" option. E-Verify then moves the case to Scan and Upload, where you supply a copy of the document instead.

If the upload itself fails with "No image was provided/available for photo match.", the document image is missing from the I-9 record. Upload the image on the I-9 first, then retry the photo match.

My Scan and Upload keeps failing

Check the file itself. Uploads must be PDF, PNG, or JPEG and 5 MB or smaller. A phone photo straight from the camera is often over the limit. Reduce it before uploading. Upload a copy of the document originally submitted with the I-9, not a different document.

Both sides are required here. Scan and Upload is the one step in the whole I-9 flow that insists on it. Without a back image the upload is refused with "Back image is required for scan and upload.", whatever the document is. If the employee only ever supplied the front, you have to go back to them for the other side before the case can move. That is the practical reason employees are told to capture both sides at Section 1.

The information on the case is wrong

You cannot edit a signed I-9, and you cannot edit a submitted case. The correction path is: close the existing case with a valid reason, then reassign a new I-9 so the employee can complete it correctly and a fresh case can be created. This is covered in full in Reassigning a Form I-9, and summarised in When and why a case must be reassigned above.

Where do I close a case?

From the case actions on the employee's I-9 form, alongside Photo Match and Scan and Upload. UZIO fetches the closure reasons that E-Verify considers valid for the case's current status, so the list you see depends on where the case is. Choose the reason that describes what actually happened. Closure is final and is written to the audit log. Every case, including one that returned Employment Authorized, should be closed so that the record is complete.

The closure reason list is empty

E-Verify returns the valid closure reasons live, and they vary by the case's current status. If E-Verify returns none at all, UZIO tells you closure is blocked rather than showing you an empty dropdown. Don't work around it. The case genuinely cannot be closed in its current state. See Still stuck? below.

I can't create a case at all for this employee

Two common causes:

• The employee was hired before your MOU-signed date. Case creation fails with "E-Verify cases cannot be created for employees hired before your company enrolled in E-Verify with this platform." E-Verify is for new hires going forward. See E-Verify Overview and Enrollment.
• There's no active I-9 for the employee. You'll see "No I-9 form data was found for the employee associated with the provided EIN/Employer Code." Assign the I-9, have the employee complete Section 1, and complete Section 2 first. A case cannot exist before Section 2 is signed.

When is a case supposed to be created?

After Form I-9 is completed and signed, and no later than the third business day after the employee's first day of work for pay. E-Verify cannot be used for pre-employment screening. The offer must be accepted and the I-9 completed first.

Still stuck?

Contact UZIO Support if a case has sat in Awaiting E-verify Submission or Draft for several hours, has stayed in Queued or Manual Review beyond three federal working days, shows Unconfirmed Data, or offers no closure reason. Please reach out to us at support@uzio.com or call +1-571-601-1752. Send the E-Verify case number, the employee's name and employee ID, the status shown in UZIO and the date it last changed, a screenshot of the case detail including any error text, and, for Unconfirmed Data, the corrected value for each flagged field. Do not send images of the identity documents themselves.

Related articles

• E-Verify Overview and Enrollment
• E-Verify Automated Reminders
• Reviewing and Verifying Form I-9 (Section 2)
• Reassigning a Form I-9
• Managing the Document Library