Nov 10
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The use of an I-9 Form is mandated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish worker eligibility.
Employers must have each of their employees fill out the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9, or be subject to fines of up to five and a half thousand dollars per unauthorized worker, together with other penalties. Such employers may possibly also be subject to sanctions called for under other laws, especially those related to immigration.
Even failing to maintain proper records can carry fines, to the tune of over a thousand dollars per missing or problematic form, regardless of whether the employee is legally authorized to work in the United States, so great is the importance attached by the government to the I-9 Form.
Individuals, employer, employee, or otherwise, who knowingly commits or participates in document fraud might be subject to over three thousand dollars for the first offense and up to six and a half thousand for subsequent offenses. Information must be reverified as essential, such as in the situation of expiring supporting documents. Data should be retained even for former employees, up to one year following the end of employment.
The “I-9 requirement” came about with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which law stipulated that employers need to verify an employee’s identity and eligibility for employment in the United States. Employers may be liable even in the case of hired subcontractors who themselves employ unauthorized workers. Such verification isn’t required in the case of volunteers.
IRCA also provided for a number of anti-discrimination stipulations so that issues like national origin and citizenship status cannot be used against job candidates. Thus, in order to avoid any possibility of a lawsuit, corporations won’t ask for the I-9 form to be filled out until after someone is truly hired.
