Beginning April 3, 2009, all clubs must use a newly revised Form I-9, the Employment Eligibility Verification Form, to ensure their new employees are authorized to be in the country and eligible to work. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency created these revisions in 2008. They were to take effect on February 2, 2009; however, the Obama Administration delayed this effective date for 60 days while the new staff at USCIS reviewed the changes.
On April 3, 2009, the 60-day review period will end and USCIS has stated that it will not make additional changes to the new form. As such, employers will be required to utilize the new I-9 for any new employee beginning on or after this Friday. The new I-9 may be downloaded from the USCIS website found at www.uscis.gov.
Thankfully, the revisions to the I-9 form are minimal and will not impose any significant burdens on you or your new employees. The changes state:
- New employees may not use expired documents as forms of identification and/or employment authorization;
- New employees may not use Legacy Employment Authorization Cards (Forms I-688A and I-688B) or Temporary Resident Cards (Form I-688) as forms of identification and/or employment authorization (in addition to this specific prohibition, all of these forms have now expired and could not be used pursuant to #1)
- New employees may use the U.S. Passport Card, a Temporary I-551 machine-readable immigrant visa and passports from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands as forms of identification and/or employment authorization; and
The form now has separate boxes to be checked by new employees who are either U.S. nationals or U.S. citizens.
As always, Section 1 of Form I-9 must be completed on the day the employee begins work and the remainder of the I-9 must be completed within three business days from the employee’s first day of work. All club HR personnel should complete the I-9 form in the presence of the new employee and the new employee must sign the form, under penalties of perjury, indicating that all of the information is correct.
USCIS investigates all immigration related issues through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) – formerly INS. The civil penalties for knowingly hiring or continuing to employ an illegal alien range from $275 to $16,000 with criminal penalties for those engaged in a pattern or practice of wrongful conduct. As such, it is extremely important for all clubs to be certain they are hiring authorized and eligible employees, and these changes to Form I-9 should help in that task.
Naturally, those clubs using E-Verify will not be affected by these changes. NCA recommends that all clubs take advantage of the protections provided by the E-Verify program and enroll today. E-Verify removes the guesswork during the document review process and provides immunity from government prosecution for employers who have been told that an employee is legal but who is later determined to be illegal. However, if you do not use E-Verify, then please be certain to use the new Form I-9 for all hires taking place on or after April 3, 2009.