Labor Immigration Law

USCIS has released a new version of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.  Employers should start using the revised form (it has Rev. 06/16/08 in the bottom right corner) effective immediately because USCIS will no longer accept older versions.

Because employers are required to complete a Form I-9 for each new hire, the change in the form should be noted.  The substantive changes in the form are minor.

The following documents are no longer acceptable evidence both as identity and as employment eligibility:

• The Certificate of United States Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-561);
• The Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570);
• The Form I-151, a long out-of-date version of the Alien Registration Receipt Card (”green card’”);
• The Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and
• The Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form 1-571)

The revised List A of the List of Acceptable Documents now includes the most recent version of Form I-766, Employment Authorization Document.

Finally, the instructions regarding Section 1 of Form I-9 now indicate that the new hire is not required to provide a social security number unless the employer participates in the E-Verify program.

USCIS just announced a couple of significant enhancements to the E-Verify program which should increase its accuracy and appeal to employers.  One of the main concerns of E-Verify is that a fair number of legitimately authorized workers receive a non-confirmation which has consequences, ranging from embarrassment to potentially losing their employment.

About E-Verify. E-Verify is a program which provides an automated link to federal databases to help employers determine employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.  The program is operated by USCIS in cooperation with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and it has evolved over the past 10 years to allow employers a quick (and ideally) accurate way to determine the employment eligibility of a new hire.  Currently, there are 64,000 employers who participate in the program with approximately 1,000 new enrollments weekly.  Our firm regularly provides advice to employers on E-Verify participation and compliance and we have noticed increased interest from employers.

The Changes.  Starting immediately, the E-Verify system will include naturalization data, which will help instantly the citizenship status of naturalized U.S. citizens hired and subject to verification by E-Verify employers.  According to USCIS, naturalized citizens who have not yet updated their naturalization records with the SSA are the largest category of properly authorized employees who face an initial E-Verify mismatch.

The second immediate change is that E-Verify will also include real-time arrival data from the border inspection and arrival system.  The goal of this integration is to reduce the number of mismatches related to immigration status for newly arriving workers who enter the U.S. legally through a point of entry.

Among the future plans for E-Verify - have USCIS sent back information to SSA to avoid future mismatches from happening and integrate Department of State passport records.

Under U.S. law, all employers must be filled out and maintained on file for every hired employee.  The I-9 form requirement dates back to 1996, but the USCIS introduced a new version of the I-9 form which becomes the only version which can be used after December 26, 2007.  The new version can be recognized by the text “(Rev. 06/05/07)N” printed in the lower right corner of the form.

The new form eliminated as a evidence of employment authorization certificates of U.S. citizenship and naturalization, both of which are easily faked.  The form retains five documents which are allowed to establish employee identity and employment eligibility, including the U.S. passport and permanent resident card.

All new employees hired after November 7, 2007 must fill the new form. There is no need to have existing employees fill the revised version of the form again.  Also, the revised form does not affect the amount of penalty imposed on U.S. employers who are caught hiring employees without providing evidence of employment authorization. The fine is from $250 to $2,000 for that offense, while paperwork errors will be given a fine of $100 to $1,000.