A notice filed in the Federal Register by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requires employers to use a new Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) starting Dec. 26 for new hires. Failure to do so could bring fines and penalties. The new I-9 form is available online at www.uscis.gov.

The revised Form I-9 is a further step in the agency's ongoing work toward reducing the number of documents used to confirm identity and work eligibility.

In addition, the most recent version of the Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) was added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents on the revised form. The revised list now includes: a U.S. passport (unexpired or expired); a Permanent Resident Card (Form I-551); an unexpired foreign passport with a temporary I-551 stamp; an unexpired Employment Authorization Document that contains a photograph (Form I-766, I-688, I-688A, or I-688B); and an unexpired foreign passport with an unexpired Arrival-Departure Record (Form I-94) for non-immigrant aliens authorized to work for a specific employer.

Five documents for proof of both identity and employment eligibility have been removed from the list. These include: Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-570); Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570); Alien Registration Receipt Card (Form I-151); the unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327); and the unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571). The forms were removed because they lack sufficient features to help deter counterfeiting, tampering, and fraud, USCIS says.
-- Delta Farm press