US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on November 7, 2007, that a revised Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) is now available for use. All employers are required to complete a Form I-9 for each employee hired in the United States.
The revision seeks to achieve full compliance with the document reduction requirements of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which reduced the number of documents employers may accept from newly hired employees during the employment eligibility verification process. In 1997, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) published an interim final rule in the Federal Register eliminating some of the documents IIRIRA slated for removal. However, the Form I-9 was not updated to reflect the revised List of Acceptable Documents at that time. USCIS has revised the Form I-9 to bring it into compliance with the 1997 regulation as a first step toward achieving the document reduction goals set out in IIRIRA and as a further step in its ongoing work toward reducing the number of documents used to confirm identity and work eligibility. The most significant change to the revised Form I-9 is the elimination of five documents from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents. The revised Form I-9 is a further step in USCIS' ongoing work toward reducing the number of documents used to confirm identity and work eligibility.
Key to the revision is the removal of five documents for proof of both identity and employment eligibility. They include the: (1) Certificate of US Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-570); (2) Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570); (3) Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151); (4) the unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and (5) the unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571). The forms were removed because they lack features to help deter counterfeiting, tampering, and fraud.
Additionally, the most recent version of the Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) was added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents on the revised form. The revised list now includes: a US passport (unexpired or expired); a Permanent Resident Card (Form I-551); an unexpired foreign passport with a temporary I-551 stamp; an unexpired Employment Authorization Document that contains a photograph (Form I-766, I-688, I-688A, or I-688B); and an unexpired foreign passport with an unexpired Arrival-Departure Record (Form I-94) for nonimmigrant aliens authorized to work for a specific employer.
In addition, instructions regarding Section 1 of the Form I-9 now indicate that the employee is not obliged to provide the Social Security Number in Section 1 of the Form I-9, unless he or she is employed by an employer who participates in E-Verify, an Internet-based system operated by DHS in partnership with SSA that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees. The section on Photocopying and Retaining the Form I-9 now includes information about electronically signing and retaining forms. The estimated reporting burden under the Paperwork Reduction Act has changed to reflect the latest estimates and, finally, the format, font, organization, and grammar of the text have been improved to make the form more readable and user-friendly.
The revised Form I-9 is available now and will become effective once the notice is published in the Federal Register. However, USCIS encourages employers to start using it as soon as possible. After the effective date, employers may incur fines and penalties for failing to use the new Form I-9. Employers must use the 2007 edition of the Form I-9, approved on June 5, 2007. All previous versions of Form I-9, in English or Spanish, are no longer valid. The 1988 version of Form I-9 in Spanish expired in 1991. Employers who continue to use the outdated editions of Form I-9 are subject to fines and penalties. Employers only need to complete the 2007 Form I-9 for new employees. Employers do not need to complete new forms for existing employees. However, employers must use the 2007 Form I-9 when their employees require re-verification.
Both the revised form and the "Handbook for Employers, Instructions for Completing the Form I-9" are available online at: Website and website. A Q&A is also available at: Website. To order forms, call USCIS toll-free at 1-800-870-3676. For forms and information on immigration laws, regulations, and procedures, call the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.
Reprinted with permission. © CCH