The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), approved the final version of the new Form I-9 on August 25, 2016. The accompanying Notice of Action issued by OMB allows for a 150-day period from the date of approval for employers to weave the new form into their processes. This will put the compliance date at January 22, 2017—meaning the current form is acceptable until that date.
As per the OMB Notice of Action, the expiration date for new form I-9 will be August 31,2019 which is consistent with previous Form I-9 validity periods. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) must also update its I-9 system within 90 days to reflect the changes and indicate the revision date at the bottom of the form.
The 2016 version of the Form I-9 also introduced some new fields and requirements in the new form.
Detailed error checking for the Paper version of the Form I-9 to reduce errors and clarification of most fields usage and required items.
Other important changes include the following:
- USCIS replaced the “Other Names Used” field in section 1 with “Other Last Names Used” in order to avoid possible discrimination issues.
- Section 1 has been modified to request that certain foreign national employees enter either their Form I-94 number or foreign passport information.
- Employees who provide an Alien Registration Number/USCIS number in section 1, must also indicate whether the number is in fact an A-Number or a USCIS number.
- If the employee does not use a preparer or translator to assist in completing section 1, he or she must indicate so on a new check box labeled, “I did not use a preparer or translator.” In addition, the form enables the completion of multiple preparers and translators, each of whom must complete a separate preparer and/or translator section.
- The USCIS has added a new “Citizenship/Immigration Status” field at the top of section 2, where the employer is expected to write the number corresponding with the citizenship/immigration status selected by the employee in section 1. For example, if the employee attested to being a U.S. citizen, the employer must write the number 1 in this new field.
- The section 2 of the new form has a new dedicated area to enter additional information that employers are currently required to notate in the margins of the form (such as TPS extensions, OPT STEM extensions, H-1B portability, etc.).
