Form I-9 Compliance: Is Your Company On The Right Side of it All?

Employers must file Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, for each of their employees, but using this form leaves many people confused. Completing the employment eligibility process correctly is crucial for avoiding penalties and fines, so it’s important to clear up any misunderstandings and file Form I-9 as intended.

Changes in regulations concerning the form, such as what is acceptable documentation or how to perform a remote inspection of documentation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, make for a lot of uncertainty and misinformation about how to complete the form.

Employers often encounter many obstacles in completing Form I-9, and Pre-employ now has an Ultimate Guide to Form I-9 to help employers facing challenges with verifying their employees’ employment eligibility. To get started, we will cover a few of these important issues in this article.

The Difference Between Employment Eligibility, E-Verify, and Form I-9?

These terms are all part of determining an employee’s authorization to work in the United States, and below is an overview of what each of these terms means.

Employment Eligibility

Employers are required to determine the eligibility of any potential workers to be employed in the U.S. Employers use the employment eligibility verification process to verify the identity of each of their employees and whether they are eligible to work in the United States.

Form I-9

Form I-9 is the form employers must use to verify the identity of all of their employees and the employees’ eligibility to work in the United States. This form is completed by the employer or their representative as well as the employee.

Employees are required to attest to their authorization to work in the United States on the form. Additionally, employees are required to show acceptable documents to their employer that verify their identity and authorization to work in the U.S. The employer must inspect the documents to determine whether or not they look genuine and seem to be for the employee presenting them.

E-verify

E-Verify is a web-based system enrolled employers can use to verify the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. E-Verify is a voluntary program. However, some states require employers to use this system. Additionally, federal contractors or subcontractors that have a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) E-Verify clause in their contract are required to enroll in E-Verify.

What Does E-Verify Check For?

The purpose of E-Verify is to confirm the validity of the identity and right-to-work documents by matching the data provided with databases managed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

The information employees have provided on Form I-9 is matched against the records held by the Society Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

There are a lot of requirements that must be complied with when completing and storing Form I-9, and this article only covered a small part of what employers need to know. Our Ultimate Guide for Form I-9 will provide you with all the information you need to complete Form I-9.

Get more answers in our Ultimate Guide to I-9 Compliance.