Tag: DOL

PERM is a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Program, which stands for Program Electronic Review Management. There are three steps in acquiring a PERM labor certification:  During Step 2, sponsoring employers must engage in a series of good faith recruiting steps, meaning they must make a good faith effort to first hire “able, willing, qualified, […]

Here is a an update on expedited EADs for healthcare and childcare workers in the US. Expedited Processing of EADs for Healthcare and Childcare Workers Any healthcare workers or childcare workers who have a valid immigration status and have an initial Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) that has been pending for over 90 days […]

Let’s say you run a business in the U.S., and you are interested in bringing your family member to the U.S. by sponsoring an employment-based green card for them. This certainly seems like a clever strategy, but it is very tricky. With that being said, it can be done, but not without extensive preparation. Convincing […]

According to statistics recently released by the Department of Labor (DoL), the number of H-1B visa holders in the U.S. has decreased by 9% since 2020 and 17% since 2019, this decrease is the biggest in over a decade. Mainly, the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects and government legislation passed in prior years can be attributed to […]

On September 15, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey S. White granted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s (“Chamber”) motion for summary judgment in the Chamber’s lawsuit– U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Department of Homeland Security— challenging a regulation that sought to replace the current H-1B cap lottery system with a wage level prioritization system. The […]

On January 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published a final rule, Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States, changing how wage levels are computed under the DOL’s four-tier wage structure. The January 14, 2021 rule is a revised version of a similar DOL rule, […]

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has put a strain on U.S. employers and the foreign workers they hire. Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) processing times have increased, and employers are seeing a sudden uptick in audits by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The PERM process is the first step of the green card process for foreign […]

On December 2, 2020, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill entitled “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020.” The bill, which sets out new provisions focused on both green card and H-1B temporary worker reform, was passed without any public hearings and is said to pacify Big Tech’s hankering for cheap indentured labor. Notably, this is the […]

USCIS will be issuing new policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual regarding Schedule A designations. The purpose of the new guidance is to describe and clarify current Schedule A requirements, and it will not represent any policy changes. When it comes to filing employment-based petitions, current regulations require many employers to obtain a labor […]

On December 1, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California set aside two interim final rules upending the H-1B visa program and other employment-based immigration categories in Chamber of Commerce v. DHS. Both rules were announced in October and comprised of significant changes to the H-1B prevailing wage levels and eligibility criteria.  The […]