New I-9 Form Delayed Until April 3, 2009
By Cindy Caplan
On January 30, 2009, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will delay the the implementation of the new Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) to April 3, 2009. The new Form I-9 was scheduled to go into effect today (February 2, 2009). The delay will provide the USCIS the opportunity for further consideration of the rules and to reopen the public comment period for an additional thirty days, until March 4, 2009. The USCIS press release can be found here. The delay in implementation is the result of the Obama administration placing a freeze on new regulations enacted under the Bush administration.
Under the rules scheduled to go into effect on April 3, 2009, employers will no longer be able to accept expired documents to verify employment authorization on the Form I-9. The new rules contain a number of technical changes, including the addition of foreign passports containing specially-marked machine-readable visas to List A of the Form I-9. We will continue to monitor the status of the proposed regulations and will post any relevant developments.