Immigration's 2008 Form I-9 ... free download
You may be subjected to civil and criminal penalties if you hire workers you know are not authorized to work in the United States. You may also be penalized if you do not complete Immigration's I-9 Form for every new employee.
Most employees must prove their eligibility to work in the United States by providing employers with proper documentation. Employers log in this documentation by completing Immigration's Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification form) within three days of an employee's hire date.
I said "most" employees because some workers are excluded, such as independent contractors, workers from temporary agencies, some domestic service workers, and employees hired prior to 11/6/1986 who have worked continuously for the same employer. Overall, the excluded employees represent a very small percentage of all employees.
Your new employee has several choices of documentation, whether foreign-born or not, so it is not difficult to have the information needed for the I-9 Form. As the employer, you want to complete the entire form. There can be penalties for blank spaces, if audited.
Complete compliance requires that you make note of any documentation used that expires and is no longer usable for this form. There is a section at the bottom of the I-9 Form for recertification. This is where you would enter any updated information. The instructions will tell you which forms of documentation are valid even if they have expired. There aren't many that need updating.
Depending on your hiring process and orientation, I have always found it more efficient to let a new employee know to bring the documentation with him or her on the first day of work. Otherwise, you may run up against the deadline for completing the form. You don't have to submit the form anywhere, but once it ends up in your to-do pile it seems to sit there forever.
The I-9 Form does not belong in the personnel file. If you don't have a large number of employees, it may be easier to maintain the I-9 Form in a binder or separate file. Wherever you decide to keep the forms, make sure it's in a secure place because the forms contain confidential information.
I am providing the latest, official I-9 Form from the Immigration & Naturalization Service, including the list of identification that is considered to be acceptable proof of an employee's eligibility to work. Homeland Security keeps making changes to this form so make sure you are using the latest version (the first page has an 06/30/09 expiration date in the upper right corner).
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