U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that employers have until Aug. 30, 2023, to bring I-9s into full compliance after the July 31 sunset of the COVID-19 flexibilities policy. The sunset of this policy will reinstate the requirement that employers complete in-person I-9 physical document inspections for employees whose documents were inspected remotely during the flexible period. This also means that any new employees hired on or after Aug. 1 of this year must have their I-9 documents physically inspected, regardless of the company’s remote work status.
Employers have been exempt from the physical inspection requirement since March 2020. However, employers who have already initiated the return of their employees to in-person work are required to immediately physically inspect all employees’ I-9 documents if those employees onboarded remotely on or after April 1, 2021; this requirement applies to all employees, even if only a portion of the employee population returned to in-person work.
Recommendations for employers going forward:
- Bring all I-9s previously out of compliance into compliance with physical inspections prior to Aug. 30, 2023.
- Compliance with the new policy can be evidenced by annotating the “Additional Information” box located in Section 2 of the form.
- Examples of how to annotate the Section 2 box are available here.
- By Aug. 1, employers must inspect physical documents for all employees regardless of their remote work status.
Simultaneous to ICE’s recent action, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a rule that would make in-person physical inspection of I-9 documentation optional under certain circumstances. DHS has stated that it could issue a more formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking as soon as one year after the end of the comment period for the initial proposal. Employers should lookout for updates to this process beyond those issued by ICE in the coming months.
How isolved can help:
See the article in the Insperity Help Center Temporary COVID-19 Form I-9 Accommodations Set to Expire on how clients can take advantage of isolved to manage their I-9 process.