by Kathy Neal
You’ve been verifying I-9s since the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) took effect in 1986. You know the difference between List A, B, and C documents, and you can fill out I-9s in your sleep. Imagine your surprise to receive a letter from the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment [...]

by Elaine Young
On March 8, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released the long-awaited new Form I-9 and its accompanying M-274 employer handbook. Employers were required to start using the new form on March 8, but USCIS is allowing a 60-day grace period in which the old forms (dated 02/02/09 and 08/07/09) will be accepted. [...]

by Steve Jones
Q: My company recently conducted an I-9 audit and found that we are missing approximately a dozen I-9 forms. I don’t know if they were accidentally purged, filed incorrectly, or never completed. Can we ask the affected employees to fill out another I-9? If so, do we ask them to backdate it or [...]

by Joseph C. Pettygrove
Employers are increasingly looking at the feasibility of scanning hard copies of various types of employment documents and retaining only the electronic copies in the routine course of business. Generally speaking, you are allowed to do that if you ensure that your electronic record maintenance systems are secure, accurate, reliable, and accessible [...]

by Emily Hobbs-Wright
Q: We have 40 stores, and sometimes the I-9s we receive aren’t filled out completely. If just a date is missing (not verification of documents or a signature), can we e-mail the store and ask for the date and fill it in ourselves, or do we need to send the forms back [...]

All employers are required to verify the employment eligibility of their employees by completing a federal Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 for each worker. Employers can use self-audits to verify that the employment eligibility documentation kept on file for their employees is accurate.
Recent changes
Effective April 3, 2009, the list of documents [...]

Employers, beware: You will soon face increased monetary penalties if you violate certain immigration laws. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Attorney General have issued a rule that adjusts for inflation the civil monetary penalties they assess or enforce under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is the [...]

The debut of a new I-9 form brings the opportunity to review some of the basics on handling the document, which has been around since the 1980s. The new form now conforms with regulations issued in 1997 (yes, you’re reading that correctly) and alters the list of documents employees may use to [...]

by Tara Eberline
The full Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned an earlier ruling by a three-member panel of the same court by ruling that an employee didn’t have enough evidence of national origin discrimination to submit his claims to a jury. The case, which has received national attention, arose [...]