THE I-9 FORM AND PROCESS

Under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act ("IRCA") all U.S. employers are responsible for verifying, through the I-9 process, the identity and work authorization or eligibility of all individuals, including U.S. Citizens.

Form I-9 is the Employment Verification Form issued by the Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The eligibility verification procedure consists of two initial steps. During the first step, at the time of hire, the employee should complete Section 1, the Employee Information and Verification Section, of Form I-9. Secondly, the employer must complete the Employer Review and Verification Section of the I-9 within 3 business days of the commencement of the actual employment.

The employer must retain the Form I-9 for each employee either for three years after the date of hire or for one year after employment is terminated. The employer must also update and re-verify the Form I-9 for any employee whose work authorization has changed during the term of employment. In addition, an employer may not demand more or different documents than an employee chooses to present, provided that the documents presented are acceptable under the current I-9 requirements.

Upon request, all Forms I-9 subject to retention must be made available to an authorized official of the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, and/or the Office of Special Counsel for Unfair Immigration-Related Employment Practices of the Department of Justice. There are potential significant civil and criminal penalties for failure to comply with any of the I-9 requirements.

At the end of 2007, a new I-9 Form was implemented to comply 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 in the new I-9 Form is the elimination of five documents from “List A” of the “List of Acceptable Documents.”

Other significant changes in the new form include the instructions regarding Section 1 now indicate that the employee is not obliged to provide the Social Security Number in Section 1 of Form I-9, unless he or she is employed by an employer who participates in E-Verify. Also, the section on “Photocopying and Retaining Form I-9” now includes information about electronically signing and retaining I-9 forms.

Both the new I-9 Form and the new Employer Handbook (M-274) are available at www.uscis.gov. All employers must use the new I-9 Form by Dec. 26, 2007. Employers only need to complete the new form for new employees, and do not need to complete new forms for existing employees. However, employers must use the new form when their employees require re-verification.

Savitz Law Offices, P.C. is an affiliate of ISD www.ImmigrationOptions.com