Today’s Federal Register includes a Notice from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announcing issuance of the long-awaited revised I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form.

The newly issued I-9 form is available for use beginning today, March 8, 2013, and bears a revision date of “(Rev. 03/08/13) N” in the lower left corner of the form with an expiration date of 03/31/2016 (upper right corner of form).  Although all employers should begin using the revised I-9 form now, a grace period was included in order to accommodate employers who need to adapt their electronic I-9 recording systems.  As such, employers may continue to use prior versions of Form I-9 (Rev. 08/07/09) Y and (Rev. 02/02/09) N through and including May 7, 2013. 

Employers should complete the new I-9 form only for new hires and for reverification purposes.  It is not necessary to complete the new form for existing employees if an I-9 record has already been properly completed and is being maintained.

Pursuant to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), Congress mandated that employers (and certain recruiters and referrers) use the I-9 form to verify the identity and employment authorization of new hires.

Employers must ensure completion of the correct version of form I-9 and maintain their I-9 records as mandated by Regulation.  Form I-9 records must be available for inspection upon request by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, or the Department of Labor. An employer’s failure to ensure proper completion and retention of I-9 forms may result in the imposition of civil money penalties, and, in some cases, criminal penalties on the employer and/or its responsible personnel.  Employers who do not begin using this latest version of the I-9 form after May 7, 2013, may be subject to penalties for failure to do so.

The new I-9 form is now two pages in length and was revised with the stated goal of reducing errors in completion of the form.  The first page of the form includes only “Section 1. Employee Information and Attestation”, for completion by the employee and/or a preparer/translator.  The revised Section 1 includes extra data fields for such things as the employee’s foreign passport information (if applicable) and telephone and email addresses.

Page two of the I-9 from includes “Section 2. Employer or Authorized Representative Review and Verification” and “Section 3. Reverification and Rehires” for the employer’s completion.  Much-needed extra space was added for completion of List A documentation information. 

Overall, the formatting changes and extra fields appear to make the form more user-friendly.

 The author may be reached at cwadhwani@foxrothschild.com.