- The Department of Homeland Security confirmed a major disruption affecting E-Verify employer validation features.
- A separate issue involves failed five hundred dollar payments for asylum fees, risking work authorization loss.
- Indian tax portal outages are unrelated to U.S. systems, despite occurring during the same time period.
The Department of Homeland Security warned employers about an E-Verify disruption on July 17, 2026, while separate immigration and tax-portal problems have fueled confusion over which online service is failing.
The E-Verify problem affects employer accounts and a new validation feature. DHS said the feature has been disabled while technicians work on restoration.
"E-Verify employer accounts are having technical issues affecting many users. The problem is linked to a new account validation feature, which has now been turned off to prevent more disruptions. Our team is working to fix the issue, but we do not know when it will be resolved."
Free toolSubstantial Presence Test Calculator
The agency told employers not to contact E-Verify support about this specific problem. Businesses may be unable to confirm new hires’ employment eligibility in real time.
The disruption is separate from the E-Filing Income Tax Portal problems reported by the Indian government. India’s tax authority addressed those issues on July 21, as the country approached its July 31 filing deadline.
The Indian tax portal and E-Verify are different systems
India’s Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, told Parliament in a written reply that the portal had “largely remained stable.” He also said service provider Infosys faced “contractual penalties over delays in delivering the upgraded e-filing project” and “application outages during peak filing periods.”
Those remarks concerned India’s income-tax filing system, not the U.S. employment-verification service. The two systems have different operators, users and legal functions.
The U.S. disruptions extend beyond hiring checks. USCIS has faced payment problems involving the Annual Asylum Fee, introduced in September 2025.
A $500 asylum fee can affect work authorization
Rep. Andrea Salinas and other lawmakers raised the issue in a July 2, 2026, letter. They said asylum seekers had encountered “repeated technical issues with the USCIS website” while trying to pay the $500 annual fee.
The payment window lasts 30 days. Under the current Interim Final Rule, a missed payment can automatically terminate an applicant’s work authorization and lead to rejection of a long-pending asylum application, even when a portal failure contributed to the missed payment.
The fee system operates through USCIS’s online filing and payment platforms. It is not part of E-Verify’s employer-account validation system.
Online filing now carries rejection risks
USCIS completed its shift to mandatory digital payments in late 2025. Policy Alert PA-2025-19 requires most immigration filing fees to be paid electronically through ACH or credit card.
USCIS guidance updated June 29, 2026, lists “Technical glitches and lack of access” as challenges in the online-only model. A failed payment caused by a system error can lead to immediate application rejection and loss of a priority date.
A separate DHS interim final rule dated July 10 adds another digital-filing risk. The government’s summary says applications can be denied, rather than merely rejected, when applicants make digital-signature errors.
The systems now handle several high-consequence steps.
| System or issue | Immediate consequence |
|---|---|
| E-Verify employer validation | Delays confirming new-hire work eligibility |
| Annual Asylum Fee payment | Possible loss of work authorization and case rejection |
| USCIS electronic payment | Application rejection and possible loss of a priority date |
| Digital-signature errors | Application denial |
| IRS and ICE data sharing | Disclosure of confidential taxpayer information |
A separate IRS data dispute involved 47,000 records
The IRS also faced an immigration-related technology and legal dispute in 2026, but it did not involve a portal outage. In February, the agency disclosed that it had improperly sent confidential tax data on approximately 47,000 individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dottie A. Romo, the IRS chief risk and control officer, described the error in a sworn declaration dated February 11, 2026. She said the IRS fulfilled incomplete ICE data requests that violated federal privacy protections under Section 6103 of the Tax Code.
A federal judge had already intervened. On February 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Homeland Security and IRS Memorandum of Understanding. The judge said the policy likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
That case concerns the handling and disclosure of tax information. It does not explain the E-Verify account disruption or the Indian filing-portal outages.
The different incidents share one feature: government services increasingly depend on electronic accounts, payments and data transfers. A failed employer validation can delay hiring. A failed asylum-fee transaction can threaten work authorization. A payment or signature error can stop an immigration filing.
DHS has not provided a resolution date for the E-Verify account problem. Employers affected by the validation issue were directed not to contact support about it while restoration work continues.
