New I-9 Form Delayed

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has delayed the implementation of a new rule and new Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) governing the types of acceptable identity and employment authorization documents that employees may present to their employers.

The rule and new form were scheduled to go into effect today (February 2), but USCIS pushed back the effective date until April 3, 2009.

Unless the rule is delayed again, employers must use the revised Form I-9 for all new hires and to reverify any employee with expiring employment authorization beginning April 3. The current version of the Form I-9 (dated 06/05/2007) will no longer be valid as of April 3.

Under the new rule, employers will no longer be able to accept expired documents to verify employment authorization on the Form I-9. Under previous rules, a U.S. passport and all List B documents are acceptable for the Form I–9 even if they are expired.

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The new rule will also add to List A of the Form I-9 foreign passports containing specially-marked machine-readable visas and documentation for certain citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).

The rule makes other, technical changes to update the list of acceptable documents.  The revised Form I-9 includes additional changes, such as revisions to the employee attestation section, and the addition of the new U.S. Passport Card to List A.

The department says the delay will provide the agency with an opportunity for further consideration of the rule and also allows the public additional time to submit comments. USCIS has reopened the public comment period for 30 days, until March 4, 2009.