The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has given final approval to a new version of the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9. Under the terms of clearance, employers will be required to begin using the new form, which will be made available to employers by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) within the next 60 days, no later than January 22, 2017.
USCIS had published a proposed new version of the I-9 in November 2015 which contained added “smart” features intended to help employers complete the form electronically. The proposed new form also contained some non-substantive structural changes. Importantly, the core employment eligibility verification requirements remained the same.
NT Lakis attorneys filed written comments on the proposal, generally commending USCIS for proposing changes that should help reduce recordkeeping errors, while also offering some specific recommendations for additional improvements that would further minimize the possibility of technical mistakes, as well as reduce potential administrative burdens.
The changes to the I-9 recently approved by OMB do not differ notably from the proposal published by USCIS in November 2015, and focus primarily on the addition of some “smart” error-checking features such as drop-down menus and calendars, embedded instructions for completing each field, and data validations to ensure data is entered correctly when the form is completed using an Adobe PDF viewer.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.