Form I-9 / Employment Eligibility Verification
The federal employment eligibility verification form required by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA, 8 U.S.C. § 1324a). All U.S. employers must verify identity and work authorization of every new hire, regardless of citizenship status, by completing Form I-9 and examining acceptable documentation. Civil penalties for I-9 violations range from $288 to $28,619 per violation for penalties assessed after July 3, 2025. E-Verify is a parallel federal electronic verification program, voluntary in most contexts, mandatory for federal contractors.
Form I-9, formally "Employment Eligibility Verification", is the federal form required by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) for all employees hired in the United States. All U.S. employers must verify identity and work authorization of every new hire by completing Form I-9 and examining acceptable documentation. The verification requirement applies regardless of citizenship status, U.S. citizens must complete I-9 just as foreign nationals do. Compliance is operationally simple in concept but technically detail-driven; ICE enforces the verification requirements, the Justice Department enforces the anti-discrimination provisions, and penalties can be substantial.
The verification process
The I-9 process: (1) Section 1, Employee Information, completed by employee on or before first day of work; identifies employee and certifies citizenship/work-authorization status; (2) Section 2, Employer Review and Verification, completed by employer within 3 business days of hire; employer examines documentation establishing identity and work authorization; (3) Supplement B, Reverification and Rehire (formerly Section 3), completed when temporary work authorization expires or when rehiring within 3 years of the original Form I-9. The employer's Section 2 examination is critical: documents must reasonably appear genuine and relate to the employee. Employers cannot specify which documents the employee must present from the acceptable lists.
Acceptable documents
Form I-9 includes three lists of acceptable documents: (1) List A, both identity and work authorization (U.S. passport, permanent resident card, employment authorization document); (2) List B, identity-only (driver's license, state ID, school ID); (3) List C, work authorization (Social Security card, birth certificate, an employment authorization document issued by DHS). Employee presents either one List A document OR one List B AND one List C document. Employers cannot demand specific documents, employee chooses from acceptable lists. Demanding more or different documents than required, or refusing documents that reasonably appear genuine, is an unfair documentary practice ("document abuse") when done for the purpose or with the intent of discriminating (8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(6)).
Storage and retention
I-9 retention requirements: forms must be retained for 3 years from date of hire OR 1 year from termination, whichever is later. Employers may retain on paper or electronically. Employers receive at least three business days' notice before a government inspection of Forms I-9, and no subpoena or warrant is required (8 C.F.R. § 274a.2(b)(2)(ii)).
E-Verify program
E-Verify is the federal electronic employment-eligibility verification system. The program is: (1) voluntary for most employers; (2) mandatory for federal contractors with covered contracts; (3) mandatory in some states (Texas does not mandate E-Verify for private employers). E-Verify supplements but does not replace I-9, employers must still complete I-9 even when using E-Verify.
Penalties
I-9 civil penalties (as adjusted for penalties assessed after July 3, 2025): (1) paperwork violations, $288 to $2,861 per individual; (2) knowingly hiring or continuing to employ an unauthorized worker, $716 to $5,724 per worker for a first order, rising to $8,586 to $28,619 per worker for a third or later order; (3) document fraud, separate criminal and civil penalties; (4) discriminatory practices, additional penalties under IRCA's anti-discrimination provisions. Violations multiply quickly: a single audit identifying paperwork violations on dozens of I-9s can generate substantial total exposure.
Anti-discrimination provisions
IRCA's anti-discrimination provisions (8 U.S.C. § 1324b) prohibit: (1) citizenship status discrimination in hiring, firing, recruitment; (2) national origin discrimination by employers with 4 to 14 employees (larger employers are covered by Title VII instead); (3) document abuse; (4) retaliation for exercising IRCA rights. Common violations: requiring permanent residents to show specific documents while accepting other documents from citizens; rejecting valid Employment Authorization Documents because they expire; applying I-9 procedures inconsistently among different ethnic groups.
For Texas employers, I-9 compliance is universal, every new hire requires completion regardless of citizenship status. Compliance programs typically centralize I-9 administration with trained staff, use the current form, meet the Section 1 and Section 2 deadlines, keep I-9s apart from personnel files, and run periodic internal audits. Hiring staff need to know that the employee, not the employer, chooses which acceptable documents to present. Federal contractors with covered contracts must also use E-Verify. Common problems include hiring managers rejecting valid documents because they look unfamiliar and failure to track work-authorization expirations.