President Donald Trump has announced that the government shutdown is over, for now. He has agreed to sign a short-term spending bill that will re-open the government for three weeks, until February 14, 2019. The bill does not include any wall funding.

The bill is expected to be brought to the Senate floor “immediately.” The President expects Congress to come to a “reasonable agreement” during the three-week interval. If Republicans and Democrats cannot come to an agreement on border security that is acceptable to him, he suggested that he might use his emergency powers.

In the meantime, we are awaiting word from E-Verify about how and when the database will come back online and what the rules will be. The “three-day” rule had been suspended and the time for employees to resolve TNCs had been extended. Announcing the shutdown, USCIS noted that it “would provide additional guidance regarding [the] ‘three-day rule’ and [the] time period to resolve TNCs deadlines once operations resume.”

Since the system has been unavailable for over a month, companies that have continued to hire employees may have stacks of documents to enter into E-Verify. USCIS likely will account for that as it establishes new deadlines.