Revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification - All U.S. Employers Required To Use The New Form
This client alert serves as a reminder that effective immediately, all U.S. employers are required to use the revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, (Rev. 02/02/09). The revision date can be found in the lower right-hand corner of the form. The interim final rule, published December 17, 2008 in the Federal Register, revised the list of documents acceptable for the Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) process. Previous versions of Form I-9 may no longer be used.
DHS is amending its regulations governing the types of acceptable identity and employment authorization documents and receipts that employees may present to their employers for completion of the Form I-9. The biggest difference in the revised Form I-9 is that all documents presented during the Form I-9 process must be unexpired. The list of approved documents that employees can present to verify their identity and employment authorization is divided into three sections: List A documents verify identity and employment authorization, List B documents verify identity only, and List C documents verify employment authorization only.
The following documents have been added or removed from the List of Approved Documents:
Two documents have been added to List A:
- A temporary I-551 printed notation on a machine-readable immigrant visa in addition to the foreign passport with a temporary I-551 stamp; and
- A passport from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) or the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) with a valid Form I-94 or Form I-94A indicating nonimmigrant admission under the Compact of Free Association Between the United States and the FSM or RMI.
Three documents were removed from List A:
- Form I-688, Temporary Resident Card;
- Form I-688A, Employment Authorization Card; and
- Form I-688B, Employment Authorization Card.
Beginning April 3, 2009, employers may only accept documents on the “List of Acceptable Documents” on the revised Form I-9 (Rev. 02/02/09). When an employee must be re-verified because employment authorization has expired, employers must use the revised Form I-9 with its new List of Acceptable Documents. An employer may not re-verify the employee by completing Section 3 – Updating and Re-verification on the previous version of Form I-9.
The Handbook for Employers, Instructions for Completing the Form I-9 (M-274) has been updated to reflect these revisions to the Form I-9 and is available at www.uscis.gov.