With employers and employees continuing to take physical distancing precautions in response to COVID-19, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) has extended the ability of employers to remotely verify a new employee’s identify and employment authorization documents for Form I-9 purposes through June 18, 2020.  Normally, immigration regulations require that employers physically inspect a new employee’s identity and work authorization documents when completing Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, but with all the Shelter in Place orders throughout the country and most employers moving to work from home arrangements, such physical inspection became impossible for onboarding new employees.  ICE therefore suspended the physical inspection requirement and began allowing remote verification of identity documents for the Form I-9 as of March 19, 2020. 

What is the New Protocol for Completing Form I-9s?

Employers who continue to implement work-from-home policies due to COVID-19 do not need to review the employee’s identity and employment authorization documents in-person with the employee.  

Instead, employers are required to:

• Inspect Form I-9, Section 2 documents remotely (e.g. over fax, video, email, etc.)

• Obtain, inspect, and retain copies of the documents within 3 business days 

However, employers should physically inspect the identity and employment authorization documents in the presence of the employee within 3 business days of resuming normal operations at the workplace.  

Employers who were served notices of inspection (“NOIs”) by ICE for their Forms I-9 during the month of March 2020 also will benefit from this extension.  For those employers who had not already responded to their NOIs, ICE granted an automatic 60-day extension from March 19, 2020 (the effective date of DHS’s temporary Form I-9 protocol).  Those employers have now been granted an additional 30-day extension  (until June 18, 2020) to produce the Forms I-9 for inspection.  

For more information on DHS’s temporary guidance, please see our previous blogpost. 

This alert is for informational purposes only.  Please contact us if you would like to discuss this development further.