On Friday March 8, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.  All employers in the U.S. are required to complete Form I-9 on behalf of every employee hired in the U.S. The new Form I-9 may be found at http://www.uscis.gov/I-9Central.

The revised Form I-9 is designed to minimize errors in completion through reformatting, clearer instructions, and the addition of new data fields, including the employee's foreign passport information (if applicable), telephone number, and email addresses. Regulations concerning acceptable documentation, form retention, and employer sanctions have not changed.

The new instructions to the form will reduce errors in completing the form and help employers comply with the law. For example, the instructions to the new form spell out the timeframe within which an employer must examine identity and employment authorization documentation of a new employee. Specifically, the instructions to the new I-9 now state expressly that if an employee begins work on a Monday, the employer has until Thursday of that week to complete Section 2 of Form I-9. This level of specificity will help employers comply with the law. The overall formatting of the new Form I-9 makes the form easier to read.  

Employers may use the revised Form I-9 as of March 8, 2013 and may continue to use the previously approved versions (Rev.02/02/09)N and (Rev.08/07/09)Y through May 7, 2013. As of May 14, 2013, only the revised Form I-9 may be used.   

Employers should not complete a new Form I-9 for current employees if a properly completed Form I-9 is already on file.

Please contact an attorney with Mintz Levin's Immigration Practice for additional information regarding Form I-9, or if you have any questions about employment eligibility verification.