What You Should Know About I-9 Forms

Immigration Law:

United States immigration law prohibits employers from recruiting, hiring, or continuing to employ illegal immigrants. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of establishes employment eligibility verification procedures that all employers must follow when filling a job vacancy. IRCA also prohibits employers from discriminating in recruitment, hiring, or discharge on the basis of national origin or citizenship status. 

Requirements:

The Office of Human Resources is responsible for implementing, administering, and reviewing procedures necessary to comply with the employment eligibility verification and nondiscrimination requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), as amended. Managers are expected to work with Human Resources to ensure compliance with the following:

1. New employees must complete an I-9 form and provide required documentation to prove that they are eligible to work in the United States on the day they begin work and provide the supporting documentation no later than three business days of starting work.
   • If an employee is authorized to work, but is unable to provide the required documentation, the employee can under certain circumstances present a Human Resources representative with a receipt for an application for the necessary document(s).
   • If the appropriate documents were lost, stolen, or damaged, the individual must present a receipt for a replacement within three business days of hire and present the actual replacement document within 90 days of hire or, in the case of re-verification, by the date that the employment authorization expires.
2. Employees who fail to provide the appropriate documents or a receipt for application of an approved document must not be allowed to work beyond three days.
3. If a terminated employee is rehired within three years of initially completing an I-9 form, the Office of Human Resources is responsible for updating and verifying the information on the form.
4. An employee's failure to provide proof of his or her renewed authorization to work prior to the expiration of the authorization documented on the employee's Form I-9 may result in immediate suspension without pay or termination of employment.

Prohibited Acts:

Human resource and hiring representatives involved in the hiring process are prohibited from asking employees for a specific document whether it is designated on Form I-9 as acceptable for purposes of verifying an employee's identity and employment eligibility, or not. See list of acceptable documents.

• Example of an appropriate request for documentation: "If you do not have one document from list "A," then you must provide one document from list "B" and one from list "C" (note: list A documents prove identity and eligibility to work so no further documentation is necessary unless the document indicates that there are employment restrictions. List "B" documents only establish proof of identity and list "C" documents only establish proof of eligibility to work in the United States, so a list "B" document must always be accompanied by a document from list "C").
• Human resource representatives and any other hiring personnel cannot refuse to honor documents that, on their face, reasonably appear to be genuine and relate to the employee in question.
  

List of Acceptable Documents

In order to prove identity and eligibility for employment in the United States, the Act requires employees to allow examination the following document(s):

A valid original document (not a copy) is required from either "List A"   or if you do not have a document from "List A", the Act requires that you provide two documents: one from "List B" and one from "List C" for examination and verification of identity and employment eligibility.

Since the I-9 Form is changed from time to time by the U.S.Government, please refer to the current I-9 Form for acceptable documents.

Please bring the appropriate documentation of your eligibility for employment to the Office of Human Resources on your first day of employment. If you have questions, please feel free to contact the Office of Human Resources at (206) 281-2809.