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USCIS announced that, as of January 26, 2015, it has received a sufficient number of petitions to reach the congressionally mandated limit, or “cap” on the total number of foreign nationals who may seek a visa or otherwise obtain H-2B status for the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2015. Continue reading “USCIS Announces H-2B Cap Reached for the First Half of Fiscal Year 2015”
Over the last few years, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has made a concerted effort to restrict the number of L-1B visas being issued. And, without much oversight, USCIS has managed (almost unfettered) to do so primarily through unpublished, non-binding decisions issued by the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), selective reliance on precedent administrative decisions, and federal district court L-1B cases prior to 1990. Continue reading “Court of Appeals Censures USCIS’ Narrow Interpretation of L-1B Visa Requirements”
As a reminder to all U.S. employers, H-1B season is on the horizon! United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”) will start accepting new H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2016 on Wednesday, April 1, 2015. As such, employers should start immediately identifying current and future employees who will require sponsorship for new H-1B petitions. Continue reading “H-1B Season is Almost Upon Us”
USCIS recently published revised Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker with an Oct. 23, 2014 edition date. Continue reading “New Form I-129 Now Available”
The following important highlights resulted from the November meeting between the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s Verification and Documentation Liaison Committee, USCIS’s Verification Division, and ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations: Continue reading “Form I-9 Verification Process Update”
On December 16, 2014, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), in consultation with Department of State, added five new countries to the list of countries eligible to participate in the H-2A and H-2B Visa programs for the coming year beginning January 18, 2015. Continue reading “USCIS Updates Its List of 68 Countries Eligible to Participate in the H-2A and H-2B Visa Programs”
The devil is in the details. J-1 program sponsors need to be aware of upcoming changes by the U.S. Department of State (DOS) to the J-1 program. Specifically, beginning January 5, 2015, J-1 program sponsors will be required to (i) undergo annual management reviews of their internal controls and of a statistically valid sampling of their J nonimmigrants files by independent auditors, and (ii) file annual reports with DOS. Continue reading “New J-1 Program Requirements Mandate Annual Audits and Reports to Department of State”
Under the Immigrant and Nationality Act (“INA”), the hiring of a foreign worker must not adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly situated U.S. workers. The INA was also designed to protect foreign workers from being exploited. To make sure that does not happen, the INA requires employers to, among other things, pay foreign workers here on H1-B visas at least the local prevailing wage. Continue reading “To Amend, or Not to Amend?”
Quite often employers ask, “If it doesn’t work out, can we recover all the money we have spent on the H-1B process from the employee?” The short is answer to this repeatedly asked question is no. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations are clear that the employer must pay the filing fees and may not allow the worker to pay it directly, by deduction from wages or in any other fashion. DOL regulations say that the H-1B costs and fees are employer business expenses and exclude those fees and costs from the list of “authorized deductions.” (Read more about deductions for an H-1B worker’s pay.) Continue reading “A Cautionary Tale for H-1B Employers”