On November 7, 2007 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the issuance of a new Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification Form). Beginning today, December 26th, all employers in the United States are required to complete the new I-9 form for each and every employee hired by the employer. Since 1996 employers have been required to have each and every employee (even if the employer is convinced that the employee is a U.S. Citizen) complete an I-9 form and also require that the employee produce one or more documents listed with the I-9 form which demonstrate that the employee is authorized to legally work in the United States. The employer is then required to make photocopies of the documents(s) produced by the employee and keep the completed I-9 and photocopied documents on file for a specified period of time. The employer is not required to submit the I-9 to USCIS but must present the I-9 and attachments to the federal government if audited.
The new I-9 form incudes the following documents which are to be accepted by an employer from an employee in compliance with the I-9 requirements: (1) U.S. Passport (expired or current); (2) Permanent Resident Card ("green card"); (3) unexpired foreign passport containing a current I-551 ("green card") stamp; (4) current Employment Authorization Document (" work card"); and (5) current foreign passport with a current Arrival-Departure Record (form I-94) issued to a temporary alien authorized to work for a specified employer.
The new I-9 does not include five identification documents which previously could be accepted by employers from employees. The five documents (all of which are issued by USCIS) no longer acceptable to prove identity and authorization to legally work in the United States are: (1) Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-570); (2) Certificate of Naturalization (N-550 or N-570); (3) Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-551); (4) Reentry Permit (Form I-327)and (5) Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571). As stated in the November 7th announcement, the reason for the deletion of the above documents from the I-9 list is that the documents "lack sufficient features to help deter counterfeiting, tampering and fraud."
i-9.pdf; (0.00 bytes)
