U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, removing five documents from the form's list of those acceptable for proof of identity and employment eligibility.
All employers are required to complete a Form I-9 for each employee hired in the United States.
The revision seeks to achieve full compliance with the document reduction requirements of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which reduced the number of documents employers may accept from newly hired employees during the employment eligibility verification process. The revised Form I-9 is a further step in the agency's ongoing work toward reducing the number of documents used to confirm identity and work eligibility.
Key to the revision is the removal of five documents for proof of both identity and employment eligibility. They include:
- 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);
- Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and
- Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571).
The forms were removed because they lack sufficient features to help deter counterfeiting, tampering, and fraud, the agency said.
Additionally, the most recent version of the Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) was added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents on the revised form. The revised list now includes:
- U.S. passport (unexpired or expired);
- Permanent Resident Card (Form I-551);
- Unexpired foreign passport with a temporary I-551 stamp;
- Unexpired Employment Authorization Document that contains a photograph (Form I-766, I-688, I-688A, or I-688B); and
- Unexpired foreign passport with an unexpired Arrival-Departure Record (Form I-94) for nonimmigrant aliens authorized to work for a specific employer.
As of November 7, 2007, the Form I-9 with a revision date of June 5, 2007 is the only version of the form that is valid for use. However, DHS will publish a Notice in the Federal Register that provides employers with a 30-day period, beginning on date of publication of the notice, to transition to the new Form I-9.
The revised form is available on Compensation.BLR.com here.
The revision date of the Form I-9 is printed on the lower right corner of the form and states (Rev. 06/05/07)N.
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