Today, Thursday, March 7, 2013, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will release tomorrow a new and revised version of Form I-9. After several rounds of revisions and changes, the new and revised Form I-9 will be made officially available through the Federal Register. As required by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), the Form I-9 is used by employers to verify a new employee’s identity and to establish and employee’s employment eligibility in the United States. According to USCIS, the new Form I-9 contains formatting changes and the inclusion of additional data fields, including employee’s foreign passport information, telephone number, and email address. Moreover, the new Form I-9 has been expanded from one to two pages and the form’s instructions provide additional clarifications. USCIS’s notice states that:
Employers must use the new Form I-9 immediately; however, USCIS recognizes that some employers may need additional time in order to make necessary updates to their business processes to allow for use of the new Form I-9. USCIS recognizes that modifications to electronic systems may be particularly necessary for employers utilizing electronic Forms I-9. For these reasons, USCIS is providing employers 60-days to make necessary changes. USCIS believes that the 60-day period will help alleviate the burden that immediate implementation of the newly revised Form I-9 would have imposed on employers. Note that employers do not need to complete the new Form I-9 “(Rev. 03/08/13)N” for current employees for whom there is already a properly completed Form I-9 on file, unless re-verification applies. Unnecessary verification may violate the anti-discrimination provision at section 274B of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1324b, which is enforced by DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment.
USCIS’s notice also contains the dates that employers should begin using the newly revised Form I-9 and announces the date that employers can no longer use prior versions of the form. The new Form I-9 with a revision date of “(Rev. 03/08/13) N” is available for use beginning from the date of its publication in the Federal Register. Prior versions of Form I-9 “(Rev. 08/07/09) Y” and “(Rev. 02/02/2009) N” can no longer be used by the public effective 60 days from the publication date of the new Form I-9 in the Federal Register. Failure to use the new and revised Form I-9 can result in the imposition of penalties under the Immigration and Nationality Act. U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement will be responsible for enforcing compliance with the new and revised Form I-9.
Employers can obtain the new Form I-9 by calling USCIS’ National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283 or by visiting USCIS’s I-9 Central web page at www.uscis.gov/I-9Central. A Spanish-language version of the new Form I-9 is available at www.uscis.gov for use in Puerto Rico only.
