The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on December 15, 2008, that it submitted an interim fi nal rule to the Federal Register revising form I-9 used in the employment verifi cation process. Employers must complete a Form I-9 for all newly hired employees to verify their identity and authorization to work in the United States. The list of approved documents that employees can present to verify their identity and employment authorization is divided into three sections: List A documents verify identity and employment authorization, List B documents verify identity only, and List C documents verify employment authorization only.

Perhaps the biggest change under the new rule is that employers may no longer accept expired documents. This change is intended to reduce the incidence of fraud and document tampering. However, documents such as Social Security cards without expiration dates are still acceptable for I-9 purposes.

There also have been changes to the list of acceptable documents that appears on the back of the Form I-9. The revised Form I-9 adds the new U.S. Passport Card to List A.
Two other documents also have been added to List A, and they will verify both identity and work authorization:

1. A foreign passport notation on a machine-readable immigrant visa that is preprinted with a temporary I-551 notation (legal permanent residence status confirmation); and

2. A passport from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) or the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) with a valid Form I-94 demonstrating valid status pursuant to the Compact of Free Association with the United States.



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