WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released a revised Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) for use. Employers must complete an I-9 form for every employee hired in the United States.
Revisions made to the forms seek to reduce paperwork requirements outlined in the Illegal Immigration Reform & Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which reduced the documents deemed acceptable to prove employment eligibility.
The new form no longer allows five documents as proof of identity and employment eligibility, the department says, because they lack features sufficient to deter counterfeiting, tampering and fraud. They are the Certificate of U.S. Citizenship, Certificate of Naturalization, Alien Registration Receipt Card; an unexpired Reentry Permit; and an unexpired Refugee Travel Document.
The bureau has added the most recent Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) to its list of acceptable documents on the revised form. Also acceptable are a U.S. passport (unexpired or expired); a Permanent Resident Card; an unexpired foreign passport with a temporary Permanent Resident stamp; an unexpired Employment Authorization Document including a photograph; and an unexpired foreign passport with an unexpired Arrival/Departure Record for nonimmigrant aliens authorized to work for a specific employer.
Dated June 5, 2007, the new I-9 form will be the only valid version of the form 30 days after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publishes a notice of the revisions in the Federal Register. Download the revised form and a handbook for completing it from www.uscis.gov, or call USCIS at 800-870-3676.
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