New Form I-9 To Be Released November 22, 2016

USCIS announced that the new Form I-9 Employment Authorization Verification will be made available via the USCIS website on November 22, 2016. As usual, DHS is providing a 2-month grace period for employers to integrate the new Form into their processes. This means that , while employers may use the new Form as soon is it is released, the new Form I-9 must be used for all new hires and reverifications beginning on January 22, 2017.

From the proposed Form I-9 that was released in October, we know that the new Form I-9 will include some welcome features, such as a separate third page for Section 3 reverifications and updates. The New Form I-9 was also designed to offer greater functionality, like flyover instructions, dropdown boxes, validations and other helpful features when completed online. However, the proposed New Form also included more instructions which specified acceptable abbreviations for issuing authority and document title. This new requirement would be facilitated by the online version enhancements, but can increase the chance of errors when completing by hand.

As with any implementation of an item with new features, employers should take this opportunity to review their current I-9 compliance and completion procedures and ensure that they are ready to implement any changes required by the new Form I-9. Your Maggio Kattar attorneys happy to assist you with review of your current Form I-9 practices and identification of steps you may be able to take to improve compliance. Please contact us if you would like to schedule a spot-test of your records to identify any opportunities to improvement to your processes or to discuss further!