U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that administers the employment eligibility verification requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), has once again revised the “Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9)” that employers must use to verify the employment eligibility of all new hires. Employers will be required to start using the new form, identified as “7/17/17 N,” by September 18, 2017.
This is the second revision of the I-9 published within the last year. USCIS issued an updated version of the Form I-9 in November 2016 that employers were required to begin using no later than January 22, 2017.
On July 17, 2017, USCIS published another revised version of the I-9 after receiving permission from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement some additional changes. Importantly, from a user perspective, the latest updates to the I-9 and its instructions are nonsubstantive and technical in nature and do not impact the verification process.
More specifically, the “Consular Report of Birth Abroad (Form FS-240)” has been added as an acceptable document to establish employment authorization under the “List C” column in Section 2 of the form. In addition, the I-9 instructions have been revised to change the name of the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices within the Department of Justice to its new name, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section.
A copy of the new I-9, identified as “7/17/17 N,” can be downloaded from the USCIS website.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.