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.