U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is looking for public comments about new changes to the USCIS Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification), according to a recent notice in the Federal Register. USCIS Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) is a unique form in that it is not filed with the USCIS. Instead, by law, all employers must complete a USCIS Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) when hiring a new employee. The form requires employers to check the employment authorization of all new employees. Employers are then required to file the form and to keep it. If a government authority requests the form, employers must be able to produce a USCIS Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) for all current employees and recent employee. The form is intended to help employers verify that they are hiring documented employees and is intended to help fight undocumented work.
The new revisions for the form include a new layout and more comprehensive instructions for the form. As well, the new form has optional data fields, where the employee can list a telephone number and email address. In addition, there are new data fields for information about the employee’s passport, including the passport number. Employees who have an I-94 admission number and are authorized to work in the US will be required to provide this information about their passports.
The public can comment on these changes until May 29 of 2012. To comment, anyone can visit www.regulations.gov. On the website are detailed instructions for commenting on the form revisions. The public can look at the current form on the USCIS website and the revised form at www.uscis.gov/I-9central.
Once all comments have been accumulated and the USCIS has made final decisions about the I-9 form, the USCIS will issue a new Form I-9. When this happens, the USCIS will place the new form on its website and will issue information about the new form on the I-9 Central website. Until that new form is released, employers need to use the current version of the form.
