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On March 16, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) quietly published an updated fact sheet titled Form I-9 Inspection Under Immigration and Nationality Act § 274A, which significantly revises how it classifies common Form I-9 errors. Without any Federal Register notice or proposed rulemaking, the updated fact sheet effectively overrides key provisions of the 1997 Virtue Memorandum, the guidance that had governed I-9 enforcement for nearly three decades. The practical effect is that numerous common Form I-9 completion errors that were previously treated as correctable “technical or procedural” violations have been reclassified as “substantive” violations subject to immediate fines, dramatically increasing employer exposure during I-9 inspections.

This distinction matters because under federal regulations, employers receive at least 10 business days to correct technical or procedural Form I-9 violations identified during an audit. Substantive violations, by contrast, may be penalized immediately, with no opportunity to fix the error first.

What Changed?

The updated fact sheet lists 28 categories of substantive violations of Form I-9 requirements. The following errors, previously treated as technical and correctable, are now classified as substantive violations subject to immediate fines:

• Missing employee date of birth in Section 1

• Missing USCIS/alien number in Section 1, when applicable

• Missing date...

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