DHS Announces Additional Flexibilities for I-9 Remote Verification

As employers reopen their offices and employees return to work in-person, DHS has provided further guidance on how employers can complete Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, for employees who continue to work remotely.  

Normally, immigration regulations require that employers physically inspect a new employee’s identity and work authorization documents when completing Form I-9, but since March 19, 2020, ICE suspended the physical inspection requirement and began allowing remote verification of identity documents for employers who had all their employees working remotely (“tele-working”). Under previous guidance, once the employer reopened the office, the flexibility for remote verification would end and the employer had three business days to examine in-person the employee’s documents, confirming employment authorization. 

In this most recent announcement, DHS clarifies that employers do not need to have 100% of their staff tele-working in order to remotely verify an employee’s work authorization (new hire or those who need to have their work authorization re-checked) so long as that employee continues to work remotely.   However, once that employee begins to work in-person at the office on a “regular, consistent, or predictable basis,” then in-person inspection of employment authorization documents is required within three business days. 

DHS also gives this new guidance retroactive effect to April 1, 2021, so that employees hired as of April 1, 2021 who tele-work do not need to have their Form I-9s verified in-person, even if some of their co-workers are working in-person.

Finally, employers who have employees returning to work in-person may have accumulated Form I-9s that require in-person verification.  DHS recommends starting this process of in-person verification even before the employee formally returns to work in-person in order to manage the backlog.   

For more information on DHS’s temporary guidance, please see the full DHS announcement. 

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