The I-9 Form is a very crucial part of the hiring process and it is what stands between legal and illegal hiring.  If you are a small business or you are a new hiring manager, please pay careful attention to what is in this article.

Author: Toby Malara 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has delayed the effective date of an interim final rule that would create a new edition of the Form I-9 and revise the list of acceptable work authorization documents for I-9 purposes. The effective date is now April 3.   The rule originally was scheduled to go into effect Feb. 2. Because the effective date has been pushed back, employers should continue to use the current edition of the form.

The Form I-9 is the form employers must use to verify the identity and employment eligibility of newly hired employees. The rule would require all documents used to verify employees' identity and employment eligibility to be unexpired. In addition, the rule proposes changes to List A, the list of documents that verify both identity and employment authorization. Employers may submit comments on the rule until March 4.

The Form I-9 delay comes on the heels of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano's issuance of an action directive on immigration. The directive calls for a review of a number of current programs, including E-Verify, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's electronic employment eligibility verification system. A final report based on the review is due Feb. 20.

The directive outlines questions relating to the status of E-Verify. According to the directive, reducing unauthorized employment is "crucial for controlling the problem of illicit immigration, and E-Verify has been a key component in proposals for comprehensive immigration reform and holds real promise as a central element in effective immigration enforcement."

However, the directive acknowledges that E-Verify has been criticized for errors such as false negatives for people who are authorized to work and authorization for unauthorized workers who have stolen the identity of an authorized worker. The directive calls for an analysis of the status of employer monitoring and compliance efforts and an assessment of how DHS can expand monitoring to include electronic detection of suspicious patterns relating to data entered into the E-Verify system.

The directive also requests information about the use of biometrics as part of the E-Verify screening process and the possibility of using data mining or other "innovative strategies" to help identify E-Verify errors. DHS is also looking into measures such as using photo tools to address identity theft in the system.