Commentary: The Lowly Form I-9 Gets a Low-Level Makeover
By Ted J. Chiappari and Angelo A. Paparelli - New York Law Journal

As of Dec. 26, 2007, all employers must use the updated Form I-9, which the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published in November. In use since 1986, the I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, is the form that all employers are required to complete at the time of hiring to verify the employment eligibility of new hires.

The USCIS has also issued a revised Handbook for Employers (Form M-274), which had been outdated and out of print for over a decade. The new I-9 can be downloaded from http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf, and the new handbook from http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/m-274.pdf.

The changes in the updated version seem minimal, some might say insignificant, and appear really more makeup than makeover. But they are long overdue, having been legislated by Congress in 1996. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA), §412(a), P.L 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, 3009-666-3009-667, amending Immigration and Nationality Act §274A(b)(1), 8 U.S.C. §1324a(b)(1), shortened the list of acceptable documents proving both identity and employment eligibility in an attempt to simplify the I-9 process and improve employer compliance. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor of USCIS and its sister agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), implemented the statute by regulation in 1997, but never updated the actual form.

The publication of the new form provides an opportunity to explore how the labor-intensive Form I-9 fits in with recent DHS initiatives and the overall immigration enforcement scheme in the United States.

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You Can Find Immigration Lawyers in the Strangest Places: Angelo Paparelli Weighs in on Subprime Mortgage Crisis in Quote for The New York Observer on December 11, 2007

Addressing the economic subprime mortgage crisis by way of “picket wielding demonstrators” was all but ignored by spectators walking by one block north of the New York Stock Exchange on December 11, 2007.“Some spectators, like lawyer Angelo A. Paparelli, agreed that the government needs to do more to stem the two million mortgage foreclosures that are expected in the next two years.”

“Obviously, there has to be a political solution [because] someone’s ox is going to be gored; the question is who suffers and who wins out,” he [Paparelli] said on the sidelines of the protest. “Everyone is culpable here. I feel for these people, but if they had no realistic hope of servicing the debt, they should pay. If they were duped, then the duper should pay. [President Bush’s plan] is arbitrary and doesn’t go far enough though.”

Lysandra Ohrstrom, “Wall Street on Jesse Jackson Foreclosure March: ‘These People Are Not Victims,’ The New York Observer, December 11, 2007.Read entire article at: Click this link