The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has revised Form I-9,
used to verify the employment eligibility of all new employees. Employers
must use the new version of the Employment Eligibility Verification form for
every employees hired on or after November 7, 2007.USCIS has indicated that it
will not be imposing penalties for use of the obsolete form, over a 30-day
transition period that will begin when a formal notice on this issue is
published in the Federal Register. . Here are the details all
employers need to know:
How has Form I-9 Changed? Employers should primarily be concerned with
changes to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents. Five documents have been
removed from List A:
-
Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-561)
-
Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570)
-
Alien Registration Receipt Card (I-151)
-
Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327)
-
Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571)
Other changes include:
- One document, “Unexpired Employment Authorization (I-766) was added to List
A of the List of Acceptable Documents.
- All Employment Authorization Documents with photographs have been
consolidated as one item on List A. These include I-688, I-688A, I-688B and
I-766.
- Instructions regarding Section 1 of the Form I-9 now indicate that the
employee is not obliged to provide his or her 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.
- Employers may now sign and retain Forms I-9 electronically. Instructions are
available on page 2 of the Form I-9.
How do I know if I'm using the correct, new Form I-9? The new
Form I-9 will contain a revision date of 06/05/07 in the lower right hand corner
of each page.
Next Steps:
The new Form I-9 is available as a PDF by clicking here.
You may also access the USCIS Handbook for Employers, containing instructions
for completing the Form I-9 (M-274) by clicking here.
Keep in mind that employers do not need to complete new forms for
their existing employees, only new employees hired after November 7, 2007.
