A federal judge ruled that US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) improperly denied an H-1B petition by attempting to impose a subspecialty requirement that is not warranted by the governing statute, regulation, or legislative history. US Magistrate Judge L. Patrick Auld rejected USCIS’s assertion that the offered position in the case did not qualify as an H-1B “specialty occupation”  because it did not require a degree in a specific subspecialty and could be filled by workers with degrees in more than one discipline, such as different types of engineering degrees.
Continue Reading USCIS Dealt a Blow by Federal Judge Rejection of Its Narrow H-1B Degree Interpretation

BREAKING NEWSUSCIS Reaches FY 2019 Cap

USCIS announced today, April 6, 2018, that it has reached the congressionally-mandated 65,000 H-1B visa cap for fiscal year 2019, as well as a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet the 20,000 visa U.S. advanced degree exemption, known as the “master’s cap.”  Our Legal Update from

The demand for H-1B (specialty occupation) visas normally exceeds the annual 85,000 visa cap by two to three times, thus triggering a random lottery for the available visas. Existing United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regulations prohibit the filing of multiple H-1B visa petitions that are subject to the annual cap for the same individual by an employer or a “related entity,” unless the related entity filing is justified by a legitimate business need. The purpose of the regulation is to prevent employers from trying to increase their chances of winning the H-1B cap lottery by submitting multiple petitions for the same individual for substantially the same position.  The penalty for violation of the regulation is denial or revocation of all petitions for the common beneficiary.
Continue Reading USCIS to Crack Down on Multiple H-1B Petitions by “Related Employers”

With the filing window for H-1B petitions subject to the annual 65,000 cap fast approaching, employers should take certain steps to prepare for the heightened scrutiny placed on this visa category. The immigration priorities of the Trump administration include reform of the H-1B visa category, which allows US employers to employ foreign professionals in specialty occupations.  While changes by regulation are not imminent, policy and procedural changes can be swiftly introduced without advance notice.  Changes announced in 2017, along with current trends in petition adjudication, provide important lessons for employers seeking to utilize this visa category for their foreign work corps.
Continue Reading Will Your H-1B Cap Petitions Withstand Heightened Scrutiny by USCIS?