U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it is extending the effective date of its interim final rule “Documents Acceptable for Employment Eligibility Verification” for 60 days until April 3, 2009. The rule which was originally published in the Federal Register on December 17, 2008 was slated to go into effect on Monday, February 2, 2009.

As previously reported , the new I-9 rule makes minor changes to the Form I-9, revises the list of acceptable documents and stipulates that employers can no longer accept expired documents. USCIS posted the new I-9 form to its web site on January 18th, but as a result of today’s announcement, they are now advising employers to only use the new form on or after April 3, 2009. Until that time, employers should continue using the 06/05/2007 version, which is also available online .

The delay of the I-9 rule (along with the E-Verify Federal Contractor Rule delay) comes as a result of a memo issued by the Obama Administration last week, which directed all federal agencies and departments to consider extending the effective date of any regulations which have not yet taken effect so that the new administration can review them. USCIS also is extending the comment period for this rule for an additional 30 days.