The Trump administration has made a significant change in the Employment Eligibility Verification form used by American employers while hiring foreign workers. Form I-9, which is used to confirm work authorization and employee identity, has been modified by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The new Form I-9 substitutes ‘alien authorized to work’ for ‘noncitizen authorized to work’ in the list of options employees may select to attest to their citizenship or immigration status.
In the verification form, the foreign workers will be referred to as aliens and not non-citizens from now on.
The Biden administration chose the ‘noncitizen’ nomenclature in its 2023 Form I-9 update as part of a larger effort to eliminate the usage of the term ‘alien’ among federal immigration enforcement organizations.
Now, the word ‘alien’ has been reinstated in the Form I-9 and the word ‘noncitizen’ has been removed.
Form I-9 is for Employment Eligibility Verification and is used to verify the identity and employment authorization of foreign individuals hired for employment in the United States.
All U.S. employers need to complete Form I-9 for every foreign worker they hire for employment in the United States. This includes US citizens and foreigners. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form.
The employee must also present their employer with acceptable documents as evidence of identity and employment authorization. The employer must examine these documents to determine whether they reasonably appear to be genuine and relate to the employee, then record the document information on the employee’s Form I-9.
Foreign employees in US companies need to be aware of the latest modifications in their Employment Eligibility Verification form.
US has made changes to Form I-9, the Employment Eligibility Verification, to align with statutory language, and updated the DHS Privacy Notice.
The revised Form I-9 with an edition date 01/20/25 and an expiration date 05/31/2027 is now available for download, while multiple previous editions remain valid until their respective expiration dates:
Form I-9 (08/01/23 edition) that is valid until 05/31/2027
Form I-9 (08/01/23 edition) that is valid until 07/31/2026 (Employers using this form must update their electronic systems with the 05/31/2027 expiration date by July 31, 2026.)
Key updates include
Renaming the fourth checkbox in Section 1 to “An alien authorized to work”
Revising the descriptions of two List B documents in the Lists of Acceptable Documents
Adding appropriate statutory language and a revised DHS Privacy Notice to the instructions
Starting April 3, 2025, E-Verify and E-Verify+ have been updated to reflect the Citizenship Status selection during case creation to show this statutory language. The selection “A noncitizen authorized to work” will be updated to “An alien authorized to work.”