E-Verify requirements in Maine: no mandate, three failed bills, and a 1977 law that already makes unlawful hiring a crime

As of October 2026, Maine does not require any employer to use E-Verify. Bills to change that came up three sessions in a row, from 2017 to 2019, covering first private employers, then public employers and their contractors, then everyone, and each one failed. What Maine does have is an older and often overlooked statute, 26 MRSA § 871, which has made it a state crime since 1977 to knowingly employ a noncitizen who is not authorized to work. It never mentions E-Verify, but it sets out the kind of inquiry the state treats as good faith.

Maine by employer type

The law Maine already has: 26 MRSA § 871

Section 871 sits in Title 26, chapter 7, in a subchapter on foreign laborers. Its core sentence, unchanged since 1977, says no employer shall knowingly employ in Maine an alien who has not been lawfully admitted for permanent residence, unless the employment is authorized by the federal immigration agency. A 2009 amendment added two pieces:

• The H-2A consequence. After a conviction, the employer may not employ, in Maine, workers admitted temporarily under the H-2A agricultural program (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(a)) for two years. For a farm that depends on seasonal H-2A crews, that is a heavier sanction than the fine.
• A tighter defense. It is an affirmative defense that the employer, before hiring or referring the person, made a good faith inquiry in writing about citizenship and, if the person was a noncitizen, a further good faith inquiry that reasonably indicated permanent residence or work authorization. An application form that asks for citizenship data, or an alien registration number for a noncitizen applicant, satisfies the writing requirement. A Social Security card is not evidence of work authorization for this purpose.

A violation is a Class E crime, the lowest grade in Maine's criminal code. The statute also tells the Commissioner of Labor to adopt rules on the procedure employers follow and on reporting violations to the Attorney General and federal immigration authorities; we did not locate those rules.

The defense needs care in practice. Federal law separately prohibits citizenship-status discrimination by employers with four or more employees, and asking applicants about citizenship before an offer can invite questions under that rule. Many employers ask only whether the applicant is authorized to work in the United States and leave document questions to Form I-9 after the offer; whether that phrasing satisfies § 871's "citizenship data" language is a question for counsel. Section 1 of the I-9 itself, completed by the first day of work, is where the employee states citizenship or immigration status; see I-9 Section 1 instructions.

The three bills that failed

LD 1307's approach, checking only people who appear to be noncitizens, would also have collided with the federal program, whose memorandum of understanding forbids selective verification: an enrolled hiring site runs every new hire or none. LD 1077's fiscal note pointed out a gap the drafting left: the bill set no penalty for simply failing to use E-Verify; its use would mainly have mattered as a defense to the existing § 871 crime. We did not find a later Maine bill to require E-Verify.

Next door: New Hampshire and Massachusetts

Southern Maine employers and agencies often place workers across the Piscataqua River. New Hampshire has no E-Verify mandate either, but RSA 275-A:4-a requires every employer to obtain and keep documentation of a new employee's eligibility to work, and RSA 275-A:4-b makes E-Verify verification a defense to a civil suit by a person whose Social Security number was misused. Details are in E-Verify requirements in New Hampshire. Massachusetts has no general mandate; its Executive Branch contractors certify that they verify workers' status under federal requirements, without naming E-Verify.

Federal contracts in Maine

Naval shipbuilding and repair, federal construction and defense suppliers bring FAR 52.222-54 into a meaningful slice of Maine hiring. The clause appears in federal contracts above $150,000 with a period of performance of at least 120 days and work in the United States, other than contracts only for commercially available off-the-shelf items, and it flows down to services and construction subcontracts above $3,500. A contractor that is not enrolled has 30 calendar days from award to enroll. A Kittery machine shop that subcontracts to a shipyard prime can find itself running E-Verify on every new hire because of one purchase order.

Staffing agencies and referral firms

Section 871's defense speaks of an inquiry made "before employing or referring" a person, so it reaches firms that refer candidates as well as employers of record. For a Maine agency, a few practical consequences follow:

• Keep the written work-authorization question in the agency's own application, not only in the client's onboarding, since the agency is the party referring the worker.
• Complete Form I-9 as the employer of record for every worker on the agency's payroll; the client does not do it for you.
• If the agency enrolls in E-Verify, for a federal subcontract or by choice, use it for every new hire at the enrolled site. Running cases only for workers who look or sound foreign is precisely the selective verification the federal rules forbid. The agency-specific issues are covered in E-Verify for staffing agencies.

A worked example

This is an invented example. A Washington County farm employs a small year-round crew and, at harvest, a larger group that includes H-2A workers. It does not use E-Verify. Its application form asks whether the applicant is authorized to work in the United States, and its onboarding completes Form I-9 on the first day, with Section 2 inside three business days. Counsel reviews whether that written question and the I-9 together satisfy the § 871 defense, because a conviction under § 871 would cost the farm its H-2A workforce for two seasons. The farm keeps copies of its job orders and I-9 files together so it can show the sequence if asked.

A Maine checklist

1. No state E-Verify duty: Form I-9 for every hire is the baseline.
2. Make sure your written hiring records can support the good faith defense in 26 MRSA § 871.
3. Never treat a Social Security card alone as proof of work authorization.
4. If you employ H-2A workers, treat § 871 compliance as protecting that program.
5. Check federal prime contracts and subcontracts for FAR 52.222-54.
6. Licensing for staffing firms is separate; see staffing agency license requirements in Maine.