To maintain a legal workforce, it is required for employers to properly and timely complete Form I-9 for each employee and also retain these forms. The employee is supposed to fill up Section I of the form on the very first day of his or her employment and after acceptance of the offer of employment. Employers who have opted for E-Verify also need to deal with Form I-9 requirements.

To meet the E-verify Requirements, the employer has to take the additional step of electronically confirming the information provided by the new employee.

In general, employees voluntarily mention Social Security numbers on Form I-9. However, in E Verify, requirements mandate that employees must mention their Social Security numbers since employers need them to make E-Verify cases.

Nevertheless, it may happen that a new employee has not yet received his or her social security number. This is possible if he is an immigrant who has just arrived. In such cases, the employer needs to attach an explanation for the non-availability of Social Security numbers to the Form I-9 filled in by the employee and set aside the case. The employee is allowed to continue. As soon as the employee secures his or her SSN, the employer files E-Verify using that number. The employer needs to create the case within 3 days of the employee starting to work for pay. If this is not done, the employee needs to indicate the reason for the delay.

While the employee is supposed to fill up Section 1 of the form, the employer is supposed to complete Section 2 of the same within 3 days of the new employee joining the organization.

The employer must physically scrutinize the documents submitted by the employee. This is done to ensure employment authorization and identity. Employers must not specify documents from the “Lists of Acceptable Documents” on Form I-9. They may reject the document if it does not seem genuine. So, the employer must scrutinize every document that the employee presents.

• Documents mentioned in List A are for establishing identity as well as eligibility for employment.
• Documents mentioned in List B just establish identity whereas documents from List C are for checking employment eligibility. An employer may accept documents from List A as well as a combination of one from List B and one from List C.

If an employee is submitting any document from List B to an employer who has enrolled in E Verify, the employer must make sure that the document contains his photograph. However, there are instances where employees have objected to providing photographs for religious reasons. In such cases, the employer must obtain a copy of US Passport, Passport Card, Permanent Resident Card or Employment Authorization Document and retain it along with Form I-9.

The difference between Form I-9 and E-Verify requirements is that Form I-9 is mandatory, but E-Verify is voluntary for most of the employers. There is no requirement for Social Security numbers in form I-9, but this is mandatory in E-Verify.