Under the Bush Administration, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) revised the Form I-9 by amending the documents acceptable for verification of employment eligibility. The new form I-9 was to go into effect today (02/02/2009).

Apparently, in it's review of all pending actions initiated by the outgoing administration, the Obama Administration has announced a delay in implementation of the new form until April 3rd. The public commenting period on the proposed change has been reopened until March 4th.

The most significant change to Form I-9 is the requirement that all documents presented during the I-9 verification process must be unexpired. Currently, certain documents, including U.S. passports or drivers’ licenses can be presented as proof of identity and/or work eligibility without regard of their expiration date.

The revised Form I-9 also eliminates Temporary Resident and older versions of Employment Authorization Cards (Forms I-688, I-688A, and I-688B) from the list of documents sufficient to establish both identity and employment authorization (referred to as "List A"), since these cards no longer are issued and any outstanding cards would have now expired.

To verify the accuracy of the information provided by a new hire when completing the Form I-9, Imperative offers a user-friendly interface into the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify system. Our interface dramatically improves the ease of use and functionality of the E-Verify system that was, after all, designed by government contractors.