Form I-9 and Corresponding Documents
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification is perhaps the most important form that both you and your new employee will prepare. In addition to verifying eligibility to work in the United States, it confirms identity. You may download and print the form and instructions from the USCIS Web site listed in Appendix C, or call 800-870-3676 to order the forms and instructions.
It is your responsibility as the employer to ensure that the employee fills out Section 1 of Form I-9 on his date of hire, which should be the first day of work. The form must be accompanied by the instructions, which are on a separate piece of paper. If an error is made on the I-9 form, give the employee a new form and shred the old one. The employee may also cross out the incorrect information with a single line and correct it above. Follow the same procedure if you make an error on your section. There cannot be anything on either the employee or employer section of the I-9 form that has been scribbled out or is illegible.
All employees who were hired after November 7, 1986 are required to fill out an I-9 form. If the employee previously worked for you and it has been less than three years since an I-9 form was filled out, you may verify and update that form instead of issuing a new one.
Acceptable Documentation
The instructions on the Form I-9 include a list of acceptable documentation that confirms identity and verifies the eligibility to work in the United States. Within three days of starting work, the employee must present you with the original documents for your personal review. You may not accept copies of the documents from the employee. With the original documents in your hand, fill-out section 2 of Form I-9, then return them to the employee. You may not have another employee or even a manager sign the form unless they are also the person personally reviewing the documentation.
Employers may make a copy of the employee's documents to keep on file with Form I-9 as long as both the front and back of the documents are copied, they are used for I-9 purposes only, and copies of every employee's documents are kept on file. You may not pick and choose whose documents to keep — it's everybody's or nobody's.
If the employee has not presented you with his I-9 documents within three days of starting work, you may not continue his employment. Employing undocumented workers is not something that you want to do. It is illegal and the consequences are costly.
The documents that you may accept are either one from List A, or one item from both lists B and C on the instructions. You may not tell employees which documents to bring in or which list or lists to choose from. Do not review or make copies of more documents than you need. Employees sometimes bring in too many things because they do not read the instructions carefully or are not sure what is expected of them. The A, B, and C lists can be confusing to someone who is not familiar with the procedure.
In a few instances, you may accept a receipt in lieu of an original document. A receipt for a replacement document that was stolen, lost, or damaged may be accepted as long as the replacement is shown to you within ninety days. Receipts for Forms I-94 and I-551 may also be accepted, but the procedures are complex and instructions should be obtained directly from the USCIS. The M-279 handbook for employers and “The I-9 Process in a Nutshell” publication are good places to find this information.
Form I-9 Retention
Retain a copy of the Form I-9 for three years after employment begins or one year after it terminates — they can be retained electronically. If an employee presented you with an unexpired foreign passport containing a temporary I-551 ADIT stamp, it is subject to reverification upon the expiration date. Set up a system to notify you at least ninety days in advance of the expiration date of these documentations so that you can remind the employee that it's time for a renewal. It takes about ninety days for the USCIS to process work authorization applications. If the I-551 ADIT stamp expires, the employee can no longer work for you.
There are several documents that qualify for I-9 verification that may be unfamiliar to you. You can look them up on the “For Employers” section of the USCIS Web site. You are not expected to be a document authenticity expert, but are expected to make a reasonable judgment whether a document is valid. If you are in doubt, check with the USCIS.
Some good ways to notify yourself when a I-551 ADIT stamp is about to expire are to utilize the reminder function in Microsoft Outlook, use a manual index-card system, or log the information in a computer database. If you choose the last two systems, make it a habit to check the sources every Monday to look for expiration dates coming up within the next ninety days. Although it is the employee's responsibility to ensure that his work authorization doesn't expire, it's a lose-lose situation if it does. It's worth your investment in the employee to help make sure that it doesn't happen.
