DHS postpones new Form I-9 to April 3

Beginning Monday, February 2, 2009, all U.S. businesses were scheduled to update their Employment Verification practices to incorporate new standards for documentation and newly updated I-9 Forms. However, late in the day on Friday, January 30, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) extended another 30-day comment period for the new rules and pushed back the scheduled update by two months, instructing businesses to resume their use of the previous guidelines and I-9 Forms.

This move caused confusion among hiring managers and Human Resources departments across the country. Within just the past few weeks, businesses had been scrambling to receive and distribute the recently released updated I-9 Forms to meet the February 2nd deadline. In doing so, many have discarded the previous forms believing them to be outdated.

Completing an I-9 Form is mandatory for all new employees hired to work in the United States and the scheduled update reflected several changes in the acceptable documents employers can use to verify an applicant's eligibility to work. The retraction and re-instatement of the old forms has employers once again scrambling to respond and replace forms thrown away last week.

Ashley Kaplan, Labor Law Compliance Attorney for G.Neil, received the DHS announcement Friday evening and immediately recognized the potential challenges.

“We worked overtime last week to ship out the updated forms to our customers to begin using on February 2, and now need to get back to them with new instructions,” Kaplan explains. “We’re providing a free pdf of the previous I-9 Form and instructions to our customers who purchased the updated forms. We’ll also closely monitor the extended review period in case further changes occur before the April 3rd deadline.”

Learn more about the most recent changes in our new Form I-9 Q & A.

DHS postpones new Form I-9 to April 3

Update to I-9 form effective immediately

Breaking news and a revised message!

Yesterday, the Federal government announced a revision to the standard I-9 form effective immediately. The old form, which was to expire on 06/30/08 had been replaced by a new revision. Now it appears that there may be some modifications on the way.

Initially, the USCIS website stated that the old form would no longer be accepted as of 6/16/08, even though it was not expected to expire until the end of the month. Today there is an apparent reversal on that site which may indicate that the old form is valid through its initial expiration date, or that both the old and new forms will be valid for some period of time.

We will keep you posted as changes appear in the Federal Register.

At this point, there are no substantive changes to the form. Only the dates of revision and expiration have been updated, so employers do not need to alter current procedures for gathering applicant information, retaining forms, or verifying documentation.

Given the expiration date of 06/30/08 on the old forms, businesses and agencies Should use the most up to date forms. As always, current and valid versions will be available from GNeil in both hard copy and downloadable formats.

Update to I-9 form effective immediately