The USCIS And The I-9 Form

The United States of America and its government operates polices in a varied amount of methods and one of these unquestionable approaches is to keep information and documents of virtually everything that goes on using various sorts of forms and applications. Employment forms are specifically unquestionable due to recordkeeping of their employees as well as a mandatory contract connecting the employer and the employee. These are some of the basic measurements and steps the businesses must take in order to remain successful and untroubled.

Unlike many other documents related to employment, the I-9 Form is issued by and filed for the bureau of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and not the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as it doesn't concern income and taxes but the very eligibility of an employee to legally work in the country. In fact, it is also known as the Employment Eligibility Verification Form.

Applied by employers to validate employee identification and eligibility, the Form I-9 is the consequence of a 1986 Act of Congress that sought to control the issue of illegal immigration. Using the form, both employer and employee certify to the government that all legal requirements are relieved. Everyone hired after November 6, 1986 needs to fill out Section 1 of the IRS Form I9 at the time of hire, with Section 2 accomplished by the employer within three days of hire. This document is not required for unpaid volunteers or contractors, though a company may still be held responsible if it is found to have intentionally hired a contractor that uses illegal workers. Nevertheless, as can be imagined, proving intent would be hard!

All this occurred with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), a bipartisan attempt to do something about the increasing number of illegal immigrants showing up in the United States. Yet IRCA was only capable to pass after employer opposition subsided with the inclusion of an "affirmative defense" clause that basically lets employers off the nook for recruiting illegal immigrants! For all an employer had to do to be in compliance was to say yes to at face value the document provided by an employee, with no responsibility at all to conduct any kind of further verification. With the addition of this loophole, IRCA finally surpassed.

No mention of IRCA should be made without reference to its other provision, that granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants then already in the country. While particular restrictions did apply, up to an estimated three million people was able to benefit from IRCA - and, as cynics as well as supporters would note, the benefits went both ways, for the government, specifically in the form of the IRS, suddenly found itself with millions upon millions of new taxpayers overnight!

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