USCIS Revises Form I-9

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on December 12, 2008, that it has revised Form I-9. All employers are required to complete Form I-9 for each employee hired on or after November 7, 1986. Form I-9 has three sections. The employee completes Section 1 at the time employment begins. The employer completes Section 2 within three days after the employee's employment begins. The employee must present documents that confirm his or her identity and eligibility to work in the United States. Employers who fail to ensure Form I-9 is completed properly are subject to fines and other penalties.

The new Form I-9 is different from the current Form I-9 as follows:

• Employers may no longer accept any expired documents when completing the new Form I-9. When completing the current Form I-9, employers have been allowed to accept certain expired documents.
• The new Form I-9 removes some documents from, and adds some other documents to, List A.
  • The new Form I-9 no longer lists as acceptable documents Forms I-688, I-688A and I-688B (Temporary Resident Card and older versions of the Employment Authorization Card/Document). USCIS no longer issues these documents, and all that were in circulation have expired.
  • The new Form I-9 adds to List A foreign passports containing certain specially marked machine-readable visas and passports for certain citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).

Beginning 45 days after the interim revised rule is published in the Federal Register, employers must discontinue using the current Form I-9 and must instead use the new Form I-9 for all new hires and when reverifying current employees' employment eligibility. The interim revised rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register shortly, and the new Form I-9 is expected to be available on the USCIS Web site (www.uscis.gov) in the near future.