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Notary Tip: New I-9 Form Announced By USCIS

i-9 resized

The federal government has issued a new Form I-9 for verifying employee eligibility, which all employers will be required to use exclusively after April 30, 2020. The form makes minor changes to the wording and instructions for I-9s.

Employers can designate individuals — including Notaries in most states — as an “authorized representative” who certifies that the employee whose eligibility is being determined presented appropriate identity documents. However, acting as an “authorized representative” for an I-9 form does not involve require any actual notarization or affixing a Notary seal to the I-9 document.

“There were no changes made to any policies involving Notaries acting as authorized representatives for Form I-9,” said Dave Basham, Form I-9 and E-Verify Speaker for USCIS.

The California Secretary of State’s office has stated that California Notaries who are not qualified and bonded immigration consultants may not complete or certify I-9 forms, even in a non-notarial capacity.

Notaries who work with I-9s should be aware that both the new I-9 form and the previous version can be used by employers until April of this year, but after that only the new I-9 version will be acceptable.

“Employers may continue using the prior version of the form (Rev. 07/17/2017 N) until April 30, 2020. After that date, they can only use the new form with the 10/21/2019 version date,” Basham said. “If a Notary is presented with a version of Form I-9 that is no longer acceptable for use, we recommend that the Notary inform the employee that the version of Form I-9 they provided is no longer acceptable. The acceptable version of Form I-9 can be found at https://www.uscis.gov/i-9.”

David Thun is an Associate Editor at the National Notary Association.

 

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3 Comments

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null

02 Mar 2020

this comment block is blocking the whole screen pretty much latest Chrome Windows 10

National Notary Association

04 Mar 2020

Hello. If you can please email us at social@nationalnotary.org with a screenshot and a description of the type of device you are viewing the article on, we will try to assist you in resolving the issue.

Candace Tilley

16 Nov 2020

The form version has been updated and is currently showing expires on 10/31/2022.

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