USCIS Releases Revised I-9 Employment Eligibility Form

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced last week that the I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification Form has been revised and is now available for use.  All employers are required to complete a Form I-9 for each employee hired in the United States .  According to the USCIS press release, the revision seeks to “achieve full compliance with the document reduction requirements of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 which reduced the number of documents employers may accept from newly hired employees during the employment eligibility verification process.”

The most significant change of the revision is the removal of five documents for proof of identity and employment eligibility. They include:

·         Certificate of US Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-570);

·         Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570);

·         Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151);

·         an unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327);

·         an unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571)

These forms were removed due to lack of features to help deter counterfeiting and fraud.

The revision also saw a single addition to the list of acceptable documents: the most recent version of the Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766).  The revised list still includes:

·         a U.S. passport (expired or unexpired);

·         a Permanent Resident Card (Form I-551);

·         an unexpired foreign passport with a temporary I-551 stamp;

·         an unexpired Employment Authorization Document that contains a photograph (Form I-766, I-688, I-688A, or I-688B);

·         an unexpired foreign passport with an unexpired Arrival-Departure Record (Form I-94) for nonimmigrant aliens authorized to work with a specific employer

USCIS advises employers to start using the revised Form I-9 immediately.  Both the revised form and the “Handbook for Employers, Instructions for Completing the Form I-9” are available online at www.uscis.gov.