In a recent meeting between the Verification and Document Liaison Committee within American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and USCIS’s Verification Division and ICE Homeland Security Investigations, further guidance was provided on documenting the mismatch of dates for H-1B nonimmigrant workers between the status expiration date noted on the I-94 Arrival/Departure Record and the underlying USCIS petition expiration date. Pursuant to H-1B regulations, the H-1B beneficiary may be admitted for a period that includes the validity of the underlying H-1B petition, plus a period of up to 10 days before the period begins and 10 days after the validity period ends, but work authorization is limited to the period of the approved H-1B petition. This can often result in confusion for employers who are completing Sections 1 and 2 of Form I-9 and do not know how to address the conflicting dates.

Employers and H-1B employees are instructed to handle this mismatch according to the following guidance:

When completing Form I-9 in this situation, the employee should enter the H-1B petition expiration date in Section 1. In Section 2, the employer should enter the expiration date from the Form I-94 the employee presents.

If the expiration date for employment authorization provided by an employee in Section 1 does not match the expiration date of the List A or List C document the employee presents for Section 2, employers should re-verify the employee’s work authorization no later than the earlier of the two dates. Q & A November 10, 2015 AILA Verification and Documentation Liaison Committee Meeting, Q14.

Also discussed was the treatment of short-term work assignments and cases where employees have completed the work and left their assignment by the time a Social Security Number (SSN) can be processed and issued. If the employee is no longer employed by the U.S. employer by the time an SSN is issued, the employer should not update Form I-9 or create E-Verify cases for these short-term workers just to add the SSN, but instead “employers should note on the employee’s Form I-9 why the E-Verify case was not created.” This does not alter the normal process for simply delaying an E-Verify query until the SSN is issued in cases where an employee is waiting to receive an SSN and is still employed with the U.S. employer when the SSN becomes available. Q & A November 10, 2015 AILA Verification and Documentation Liaison Committee Meeting, Q5.