New I-9 Form Reminder – Did you miss it?

Employers Must Now Use New I-9 Form

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a reminder that the revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification (Rev. 02/02/09), went into effect April 3, 2009 for all U.S. employers. The revision date is printed on the lower right-hand corner of the form.

Employers must use the revised Form I-9 (Rev. 02/02/09) for all new hires and to reverify any employee with expiring employment authorization.

The interim final rule, published December17, 2008 in the Federal Register, revised the list of documents acceptable for the Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) process. Employers may no longer use previous versions of the Form I-9.

The revised list specifies that expired documents are no longer acceptable forms of identification or employment authorization. USCIS says that allowing the use of expired documents made it more difficult for employers to verify an employee’s identity and employment authorization and compromised the Form I-9 process.

USCIS also updated the Handbook for Employers – Instructions for Completing Form I-9 to reflect the requirements of the revised Form I-9.