I-9s for a small Alabama employer

This article is general HR operations information, not legal advice. Form I-9 is a timing and storage problem as much as a form problem. Section 1 belongs to the employee, completed by the first day of work. Section 2 belongs to the employer, completed within the required window after documents are examined. Write the process down so it does not depend on one person remembering. Store I-9s together, separate from the general personnel file. Limit who can open that folder. A supervisor does not need the whole set to answer a scheduling question. Do not accept photos of documents over a casual email thread, and do not upload identity documents to a public contact form. If a remote hire needs document examination, use a defined method and keep a note of how it was done. When a form is wrong, the correction method matters. The usual habit — rewriting a clean form and throwing the old one away — can make the file worse. Get instructions before you mark anything up. An I-9 audit project exists to flag each error and walk through the proper correction, form by form. Retention is a calendar, not a feeling. Some forms can be purged on a schedule. Some cannot. Put the dates on a list. If ICE, or anyone else with authority, asked tomorrow, you want three things: the forms, a short index, and a person who knows where they are. That is the whole operational goal. We can review the set with you. The public website is not the place to send the forms themselves.