Updated Form I-9 – Required for Use by Employers May 1, 2020
Posted by: Emma Berdanier on February 4th, 2020
Once again, the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has updated the Form I-9. The revised form was released on Jan. 31, 2020. Along with the new form, USCIS released a revised handbook for employers on the new form.
Although this new Form I-9 has already been released, employers are not required to switch over to it yet. They can continue using the old form until April 30, 2020. After this date, all employers will be required to use the newly updated version. This will give employers plenty of time to take the necessary steps to rollout the new form.
The Old Form I-9
The last update to the Form I-9 came in 2017. This form was set to expire on Aug. 31, 2019. However, since USCIS hadn’t released an updated form until recently, employers were instructed to continue using this form.
The Revised Form I-9
No extreme revisions to the Form I-9 have been made this time around. The majority of the changes are clerical, i.e. changing country names and reordering the list of acceptable documents. However, a few key changes were made, including:
- A new form of identification, Consular Report of Birth Abroad, has been added to List C.
- All reports of birth issued by individual states have been combined into one option on List C.
- Clarifications as to who can be an authorized representative on behalf of an employer have been made.
USCIS also issued a revised Spanish version of Form I-9. But this version is only available for use in Puerto Rico. A Spanish-speaking employee in the rest of the U.S. may reference this version but must fill out an English version of the revised form.
Preparing for May 1, 2020
Be sure your HR department is up-to-date about all of the changes made to the Form I-9 before May. It’s necessary that every employee at your company who processes onboarding is familiar with the revised form. Your employees should read through the revised handbook and look over the revised form. This will ensure that when May 1, 2020 rolls around, your company is prepared to remain compliant.
Sources:
