Employers Ordered to Use New I-9 Forms
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced earlier this week that an updated Employment Eligibility Verification Form (commonly known as the "I-9") is available for use by employers. The form is similar in appearance to earlier versions, but has some significant changes:
· Five documents previously acceptable for proof of identify and employment eligibility have been removed from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents on the form: Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-561); Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570); Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151); the unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and the unexpired Refugee Travel Document (I-571).
· The most recent version of the unexpired Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) has been added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents on the newly updated I-9, which also includes a U.S. passport (expired or unexpired), 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 non-immigrant aliens authorized to work for a specific employer.
· Employees are not obligated to provide their social security numbers in Section 1 of the revised Form I-9 unless employed by an employer that participates in E-Verify. Additionally, employers may now sign and retain I-9 Forms electronically.
The new I-9 Form is available in English and Spanish. Although employers in the 50 states may use the Spanish version as a translation guide for Spanish-speaking employees, the English version must be completed; only employers in Puerto Rico may actually have their employees complete the Spanish version for their records.
Even though the updated I-9 Form does not become officially effective until notice is published in the Federal Register (which should occur in the very near future), the government is encouraging employers to start using the revised form immediately; failure to use the updated version after the effective date may result in fines and penalties. On a going-forward basis, employers may rely only on those documents currently set forth on the List of Acceptable Documents for new employees, as well as those for whom reverification is necessary.