Cora-Ann Pestaina

BALCA CLARIFIES DOL’S POSITION ON PROOF OF PUBLICATION OF THE SWA JOB ORDER AND ADS PLACED BY PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT FIRMS UNDER PERM

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As usual, BALCA (Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals) decisions are very important for practitioners as they offer crucial insights into how to avoid some of the pitfalls in preparing and filing a labor certification application under Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) or into what arguments can be made in response to the unfortunate receipt of a PERM denial notice. BALCA recently issued some notable decisions.

DOCUMENTATION OF THE SWA JOB ORDER
While the Department of Labor (“DOL”) is obsessed about the employer presenting proof of publication of its recruitment, BALCA recently held, in an en banc decision, A Cut Above Ceramic Tile, 2010-PER-00224 (Mar. 8, 2012), that based on the history of the PERM regulations and the plain language of 20 C.F.R. §656.17(e)(2)(i), proof of publication of the State Workforce Agency (“SWA”) job order is not required supporting documentation.
The PERM regulations at 656.17(e)(2)(i) require an employer filing a PERM application to place a job order with the SWA serving the area of intended employment for a period of 30 days. That same section of the regulations also states, “[t]he start and end dates of the job order entered on the application serve as documentation of this step.” Pursuant to 656.10(f), all documentation supporting the PERM application must be retained for five years after filing the application. 656.17(a)(3) mandates that the employer must furnish “required supporting documentation” to the Certifying Officer (“CO”) if the PERM application is audited. A substantial failure by the employer to provide the required documentation will result in a denial of the PERM application. 656.20(b).

In A Cut Above Ceramic Tile, the employer attested, on an ETA Form 9089 filed on January 8, 2007, that, as part of its domestic recruitment efforts for the position of Tile Setter, it placed a job order with the SWA in the area of intended employment from July 13 to August 12, 2006. On June 11, 2009, the DOL issued an audit notification, which included the request for a copy of the job order placed with the SWA downloaded from the SWA internet job listing site; a copy of the job order provided by the SWA; or other proof of publication from the SWA containing the content of the job order. As part of its audit response, the employer included a copy of its completed Employer Job Order Information Sheet from VaEmploy.Com, the SWA for the state of Virginia. Citing 656.20(b) as authority, the CO denied the PERM application based on the employer’s failure to provide proof of publication of the SWA job order containing the content of the job order, as requested in the audit notification letter. The CO found that the employer’s submission of the Employer Job Order Information Sheet did not show the final content of the job order as run by the SWA.

The Employer filed a motion for reconsideration of the PERM denial arguing that the PERM regulations provide that the SWA job order is documented by the start and end dates entered on the ETA Form 9089. The employer also argued that it had tried to obtain proof of publication from the SWA but had been informed that proof of the publication of its job order had been deleted. The CO affirmed the denial and forwarded to case to BALCA which also affirmed the denial and held that the employer’s documentation only showed that the job order was placed for the required 30-day period but did not provide proof of its contents.

The Employer then filed a petition for en banc review which BALCA granted to resolve the issue of whether a CO may deny certification of a PERM application based on the employer’s failure to provide proof of the publication of the SWA job order. BALCA invited the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) to file an amicus brief which it did. There was a conflict between BALCA panels because, in another case, Mandy Donuts Corp., 2009-PER-481 (Jan. 7, 2011), a BALCA panel compared the PERM regulations at 656.17(e)(2)(i) on placement of the job order and the regulations at 656.17(e)(1)(i)(B)(3) and 656.17(e)(2)(ii)(C) on placement of a newspaper advertisement and pointed out that the PERM regulations for documentation of proof of newspaper advertisements specifically require the employer to provide copies of the newspaper pages in which the advertisement appeared or proof of publication furnished by the newspaper. The panel held that the PERM regulations only require “placement” of the job order for 30 days which is documented by the start and end dates entered on the PERM application.The en banc panel in A Cut Above Ceramic Tile agreed with the Mandy Donuts panel and held that the distinction in the regulations is clear. The drafters of the regulation could easily have included a requirement that employers provide proof of publication of the SWA job order. In fact, the regulations governing the placement of a job order for the H-2B temporary nonagricultural labor certification program, also administered by the Employment and Training Administration (“ETA”) specifically require that the employer maintain a copy of the SWA job order or other proof of publication containing the text of the job order. 656.15(e)(1). The en banc panel reasoned that the ETA intentionally drafted the H-2B and the PERM SWA job orders regulations differently. In fact the ETA specifically stated in its response to comments regarding the audit process, that the employer is only required to provide the start and end date of the job order on the application to document the job order has been placed and the gathering of additional information on the job order from the SWA will not be necessary. See ETA, Final Rule, Implementation of New System, Labor Certification Process for the Permanent Employment of Aliens in the United States [“PERM”], 69 Fed. Reg. 77326, 77359 (Dec. 24, 2004). Essentially, the CO does not have the power to request just any type of documentation and the employer’s application may only be denied under 656.20(b) when the absent documentation is required.

While this en banc decision may appear attractive, and is certainly useful when inheriting flawed cases, practitioners ought to continue the practice of printing copies of the job order to demonstrate good faith recruitment. The BALCA en banc panel made sure to comment, in note 5, that “the spirit and the context of the PERM regulations, which are grounded in attestations backed up by retained documentation to support attestations, strongly suggest that an employer should retain and be able to produce documentation about the content and dates of action on all elements of recruitment. We would anticipate that most employers recruiting in good faith will have retained documentation in some form to show the content of the job order, and if so be able to produce it.” However, it is now clear that failure to produce the SWA job order cannot be the sole basis for a PERM denial.

THE USE OF PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT FIRMS TO CONDUCT RECRUITMENT

Under 656.17(e)(1)(ii), when conducting recruitment for a professional position, the employer must conduct three additional recruitment steps to advertise the position. The employer may choose from ten forms of recruitment including the use of a private employment firm or placement agency. 656.17(e)(1)(ii)(F) states:

The use of private employment firms or placement agencies can be documented by providing documentation sufficient to demonstrate that recruitment has been conducted by a private firm for the occupation for which certification is sought. For example, documentation might consist of copies of contracts between the employer and the private employment firm and copies of advertisements placed by the private employment forms for the occupation involved in the application.

In Credit Suisse Securities, 2010-PER-103 (Oct. 19, 2010), BALCA rejected the employer’s argument that 656.17(f), requiring that advertisements placed in newspapers of general circulation or in professional journals state the name of the employer and provide a description of the vacancy specific enough to apprise U.S. workers of the job opportunity, was not applicable to the additional recruitment steps for professional occupations, and held that the regulation in fact governs all forms of advertisement. However, not all the additional recruitment methods for professional positions readily lend themselves to these requirements. For instance, when recruiting through private employment firms, it makes no business sense to indicate the name of the employer because an applicant could then bypass the headhunter and apply directly to the employer. Indeed, in Credit Suisse Securities, BALCA acknowledged in note 7 that the requirements of 656.17(f) only applies to advertisements, and that it was not making a determination with respect to job fairs, on-campus recruiting, private employment firms and campus placement offices.In World Agape Mission Church, 2010-PER-01117 (Mar. 23, 2012), the employer conducted recruitment for the professional position of “Pastor (Associate)” recruiting through a private employment agency as one of the three additional recruitment steps for professional positions. The CO issued an audit notification and, as part of its response to the audit notification, the employer submitted a letter from the private employment agency certifying that the agency had checked its database for any qualified applicants and had posted the job posting online. The job posting listed the job title, salary information, a job description, experience and education requirements, and that the position was full-time. The job posting was identifiable by a job number. The CO argued that the employer’s name must be included in an advertisement to ensure that the results of an employer’s test of the labor market are legitimate. The CO cited 656.17(f)(1), requiring that advertisements placed in newspapers of general circulation “name the employer.”BALCA noted its decision in Credit Suisse Securities but held that an advertisement placed by a private employment agency is different than one placed directly by the employer. BALCA referenced its decision in HSB Solomon, 2011-PER-2599 (Oct.25, 2011) that 656.17(f) does not apply to advertisements placed by private employment firms. However, World Agape Mission Church makes it clear that the employer still has a duty to recruit in good faith and to make the job opportunity clearly open to all U.S. workers even when using a private employment agency. Of particular note was the fact that the job posting provided applicants with sufficient information like the job title, job duties, and education/experience requirements, and even if it did not list the name of the employer, it listed a job number which matched the job number listed in the letter from the employment agency certifying its recruitment. This allowed the CO to match the listing to the agency’s advertisement even without the inclusion of the employer’s name in the posting.SUPERVISED RECRUITMENT

As the supervised recruitment train keeps barreling through, we have to keep on the lookout for any BALCA decisions to help guide us through the process. BALCA recently issued two decisions worth reading.In Kennametal, Inc., 2010-PER-01512 (Mar. 27, 2012), BALCA held that the employer had improperly rejected U.S. workers because it did not consider the possibility that certain applicants could become qualified after a reasonable period of on-the-job training. But most interestingly, BALCA held that the employer’s rejection of applicants for not possessing the requisite bachelor’s degree was unlawful and specifically listed examples of applicants who had an associates’ degree and 10 to 24 years of experience. BALCA held that because the employer indicated in its advertisements that it would “accept a combination of education, training and experience” (well-known to practitioners filing PERM applications as the Kellogg language based on Matter of Francis Kellogg, 94-INA-465 (Feb. 2, 1998) (en banc), the employer should have considered these applicants and interviewed them to further evaluate their skills. This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that the DOL routinely requests that employers list the Kellogg language in the supervised recruitment advertisements even where it is not applicable. Now, employers have to be alert to the fact that the DOL could then use that same Kellogg language against them to argue that they unlawfully rejected U.S. workers.In JP Morgan Chase & Co, 2011-PER-00635, BALCA upheld the CO’s denial of the PERM application under supervised recruitment because the employer did not list the addresses of the U.S. worker applicants in the body of its recruitment report as required under the supervised recruitment regulations at 656.21(e)(3) despite the fact that the employer had submitted copies of all the resumes which listed the U.S. addresses of the applicants.

Cyrus Mehta

Federal Court Reverses Unreasonable H-1B Denial For Market Research Analyst

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Employers who file perfectly bonafide H-1B petitions for certain occupations face unreasonable denials from the USCIS. One H-1B occupation that is especially vulnerable to a denial is  Market Research Analyst. The USCIS’s rationale for the denial is that the occupation must require a degree in the actual position and not in closely related fields. Thus, even if it is acknowledged that a Market Research Analyst requires a degree in closely related fields such as business, marketing, economics, sociology or psychology,  but not  specifically in market research analysis, that can provide a basis for the USCIS to arbitrarily deny the H-1B petition. There is clearly no requirement that the specialized degree for entry into the occupation needs to be in a single academic discipline. This may be true for occupations such as law or medicine, but if the USCIS applies such narrow criteria, a lot of occupations will not qualify for the H-1B visa.

In Tapis Int’l v. INS, 94 F Supp. 2d 172 (D. Mass 2000), the beneficiary was sponsored for H-1B classification as a showroom manager  The petition was denied because the employer could not demonstrate that the position required a degree in showroom management, although the position required a degree in business administration, marketing or related field  as well as additional training or experience in the field of interior design.  In that case, the court reversed the denial on the ground that such a narrow agency interpretation would preclude any position from satisfying the “specialty occupation” requirements where a specific degree is not available in that field.

Yet, the USCIS continues to use this faulty interpretation in denying H-1B petitions. This is precisely what recently happened to an employer who sought H-1B visa classification for a foreign national in the specialty occupation of Market Research Analyst who had a degree in marketing and finance.  In Residential Finance Corporation v. USCIS, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32220, decided on March 12, 2012, Judge Gregory L. Frost of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (Eastern Division) chided U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for denying an H-1B petition to a market research analyst with a bachelor’s degree in closely related fields.

The issue before the court in Residential Finance Corporation was whether USCIS was incorrect in concluding that there was not a”specialty occupation” involved.  The court noted that a specialty occupation is one that requires attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States.  A related definition provides that a specialty occupation requires theoretical and practical application of highly specialized knowledge.

Among other things, USCIS argued that although the Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) recognizes a baccalaureate degree as the minimum educational requirement for many market and survey research jobs, the OOH does not indicate that such a degree need be in a specific specialty directly related to market research.

In this case, the beneficiary had obtained a bachelor of science degree in marketing and finance.  The record indicated that a minimum requirement for entry into the position of market research analyst is the specialized course of study in which the beneficiary had engaged.

“Perhaps most bewildering is that Defendant rejected the evidence that [the beneficiary] would actually be performing these job duties if hired, despite no evidence to the contrary and no other apparent reason for failing to credit the evidence on this record,” the judge said.

Judge Frost continued: “Defendant continues to reject this record in favor of supporting a flawed denial. What Defendant overlooks is that the illogical leaps about which Plaintiff complains in its thorough briefing cannot be separated from the process in which Defendant engaged in its decision making.  Stated simply, Defendant did a poor job of keeping the record straight and its focus on the actual inquiry involved.”

The judge pointed out that USCIS expressly admitted “inexplicable errors” in its briefing, such as references to the wrong sections of the OOH, and that the agency’s decision appeared to identify the proffered position incorrectly as a marketing manager rather than a marketing analyst.

Judge Frost said that these errors were not the essentially inconsequential lapses that USCIS suggested.  Instead, he said, they constituted “a litany of incompetence that presents [a] fundamental misreading of the record, relevant sources, and the point of the entire petition.” If USCIS wants to deny a petition that will send the beneficiary to another country after 21 years of living in the United States, the judge said, “it should afford Plaintiff and [the beneficiary] a bare minimum level of professionalism, diligence, and reasoning.”  Noting that the record indicated that a market and survey researcher is a distinct occupation with a specialized course of study that includes multiple specialized fields, that the beneficiary had completed such specialized study in the relevant fields of marketing and finance, and that Residential Finance Corporation had sought to employ him in such a position, Judge Frost said that USCIS had ‘ignore[d] the realities of the statutory language involved and the obvious intent behind them.  The knowledge and not the title of the degree is what is important. Diplomas rarely come bearing occupation-specific majors.”

Judge Frost concluded that USCIS failed to meet the “fundamental threshold for rational decision making and has instead engaged in conduct that cannot be separated from the taint of the foregoing errors.”  He thus found that the denial of the petition was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion, and ordered that USCIS grant the petition and change the beneficiary’s status to H-1B nonimmigrant.

Employers and their attorneys should use these decisions to advocate for their clients in case the USCIS absurdly asserts that the position does not require a degree in a single academic discipline.  INA § 214(i) defines a specialized occupation as requiring “(A) theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge; and (B) attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree in the specific specialty (or its equivalent) as a minimum for entry into the occupation in the United States.”  While it is true that INA § 214(i) requires a bachelor’s degree in a specific specialty for the position to qualify under the H-1B visa classification, it should be argued that this section does not restrict it to a degree in a single specialty.  For instance, a position for a computer programmer analyst could require a bachelor’s degree in specialties such as computer science, management information systems, mathematics, engineering or closely related fields. All of these specialties could qualify a person for this specialty occupation.  Congress could not have intended that INA § 214(i) be restricted to a single specialty, namely, computer science, and preclude the demonstration of other specialties, such as mathematics or engineering disciplines, that could also qualify a nonimmigrant for the specialty occupation of computer programmer analyst.

If your case is denied, do not lose hope.  You can always litigate a good case in federal court and try to get the same favorable outcome as in Residential Finance Corporation and Tapis International.

Cora-Ann Pestaina

THE SUPERVISED RECRUITMENT ROLLER COASTER -THE RIDE THUS FAR

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You filed a spotless labor certification. It was a perfect case, a perfect employer and a perfect employee with the perfect qualifications. Yet, one day, there it was in the mail. The dreaded Notification of Supervised Recruitment (“NSR”). The Department of Labor (“DOL”) had long advised to expect increased Supervised Recruitment. You knew the possibility of receiving an NSR existed and had advised your client accordingly. Still, its arrival was disappointing. Initial indignation (“How dare they?”) gave way to resignation (“Oh well, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”) to actual enthusiasm (“Hey, this will give me chance to finally see what this crazy process is about!”). And so, assuring your client that all will be well, you took their hand and boarded the Supervised Recruitment roller coaster.

The DOL is authorized, under 20 C.F.R. § 656.21, to conduct Supervised Recruitment.  The article by Cyrus Mehta, Maggie Murphy and David Ware, Supervised  Recruitments in Tough Economic Times – Practical Tips For Compliance quoted Solicitor of Labor Gregory F. Jacob who said, “Supervised Recruitment is one of many tools the [Department of Labor] uses to safeguard the integrity of the permanent labor certification process and protect job opportunities for American workers. The department takes seriously its statutory responsibility to ensure that American workers have access to jobs they are qualified and willing to do.” This article also indicated that the DOL will target employers in industries with publicized layoffs in specific geographic locations, e.g. employers in the financial industry in New York City. The DOL may also target employers in the computer and auto industries. The DOL has begun to make good on its threat to increase Supervised Recruitment and like most practitioners, I am currently in the middle of the Supervised Recruitment process, with no telling where this ride will take me next. Based on experiences thus far, here is some of what can be expected.

Requests for extension may/may not be granted

The NSR describes the steps involved in the Supervised Recruitment process and gives the employer 30 calendar days, from the date of the NSR, to submit a draft advertisement and any additional information requested in the NSR. The NSR also indicates that the employer may submit a timely request for one extension of the 30-day timeframe by e-mailing the DOL at SR.processing@dol.gov. A good reason for an extension would be that you are a new attorney of record. However, the employer cannot rely on the mere timely submission of an extension request. The request must be officially granted.  The problem is that the DOL may respond within 1-2 days; may take longer than a week to respond; or may not respond! Moreover, there is also no guarantee that the response will be favorable. Because of this uncertainty, it is best to begin to prepare a response to the NSR which can be timely filed in the event that no response from the DOL has been received.

The requirements for the advertisement are different

The NSR lists the required content for advertisements. One immediately becomes aware that the rules under Supervised Recruitment are different from the PERM rules. Under Supervised Recruitment, the advertisement must contain the job title; the job duties; the work schedule; the education and experience requirements; the geographic location(s) of employment; the Kellogg language, “Any suitable combination of education, training or experience is acceptable;” the offered wage; and a list of any training to be provided to employees. The advertisement must direct applicants to submit their applications to the DOL’s Recruitment and Employment Office.

The NSR may also request additional documentation. For example, the DOL may require the employer to “explain any limitations on training…with regard to [the offered] position.” The DOL does not clarify what is meant by this request but asks that the employer note that a worker is able and qualified for the job opportunity if the worker can acquire the skills necessary to perform the duties involved in the occupation during a reasonable period of on-the-job training.

Requests for additional information

Once the draft advertisement has been submitted, the DOL may request additional information. For example, a draft ad requesting that applicants “must be willing to work in unanticipated locations across the US” may elicit a request that the employer establish the business necessity for this requirement. The employer will be given 30 calendar days from the date of the request within which to submit its response.

Making changes to the ad after it has been submitted

Once the draft advertisement has been submitted, it may be possible to make amendments to the ad by e-mailing the DOL. For instance, in one case, after the draft advertisement had been submitted to the DOL, the employer asked whether it could indicate that there were multiple, identical positions available within the company. The DOL responded favorably to an e-mail inquiry requiring only that the specific number of positions be indicated. However, it may not be possible to make a drastic amendment to the advertisement from what was stated in the PERM form.

Issues with recruitment

Once the employer’s draft advertisement has been approved, the DOL will issue its Recruitment Instructions.  The Recruitment Instructions are specific instructions informing the employer where and when the advertisement must run. Again, here, the recruitment process will differ from what is required under PERM.  For example, for a professional position, the DOL may require that a 30-day job order be placed with the State Workforce Agency (SWA); that the ad run in a specific major newspaper and online for 3 consecutive days including a Sunday; that the ad run on the employer’s website for 7 consecutive days; that the ad run on 2 other websites for 7 consecutive days; and that the employer post the Notice of Filing for 10 consecutive business days.  All of the recruitment must commence within 15 days of the date of the Recruitment Instructions notification.

The problem is, sometimes, it takes several days for the Recruitment Instructions notification to arrive in the mail. By the time the instructions arrive, the employer may only have 10 days left of the initial 15 days. Then, the employer may encounter problems with some of the recruitment steps. For instance, depending on the particular SWA, it may take up to 7 days to post the job order. To make matters worse, some SWAs may edit the posting (e.g. directing that applications be sent to the employer’s headquarters).  Some SWAs are notorious for randomly editing the job order even after it has been posted for a few days.  The word “sabotage” inevitably comes to mind but I digress. It is important to constantly and painstakingly check the contents of the job order.

Sometimes, the DOL will instruct that the advertisement be placed in the most expensive newspaper of general circulation. For instance, the DOL may instruct that an advertisement for a professional position in Edison, New Jersey, run for 3 consecutive days including a Sunday in the New York Times when the New Jersey Star Ledger is a perfectly appropriate and less expensive newspaper. Considering the extensive requirements for the advertisement (discussed above), it may cost several thousand dollars to run the ad in the newspaper.  Of course, the employer may e-mail the DOL to request a change of newspaper. But again, the DOL may respond in 1-2 days, may take a long time to respond or may never respond. Oftentimes, the employer is forced to simply pay the advertising fees.

The employer is required to e-mail a recruitment schedule to the DOL, no later than 15 days after the last placed advertisement.

Resumes

The DOL will not wait to gather any number of resumes but will forward them to the employer as they are received. In some cases, the resumes will only be sent to the attorney and in other cases, the attorney will only be cc’d on the communication.  If an attorney receives a resume, it is important that this be forwarded to the employer immediately upon receipt so that it can be appropriately evaluated. Also, it is important that the attorney not evaluate the resume before the employer does. Remember the DOL insists that the employer first consider a US worker applicant and not the attorney.  Employers are also required to consider any resumes that may be sent directly to them.

Expected next steps are that the DOL will issue its request for the final written Recruitment Report and will issue a determination whether to grant or deny the application.

I am sure that practitioners can provide countless anecdotes on their experiences with Supervised Recruitment. The only thing I think we can count on is that Supervised Recruitment is not going away. Stay tuned for more highlights from this journey that I have just embarked upon.

Cyrus Mehta

EDGE SAYS INDIAN 2- YEAR MASTER’S DEGREE FOLLOWING 4-YEAR BACHELOR’S IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO US MASTER’S DEGREE

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Determining whether a foreign degree is equivalent to a US degree is crucial for an employment-based immigrant visa petition. Within the US employment-based preference system, being classified under the Employment-based Second Preference (EB-2) puts one at a significant advantage over one who is classified under the Employment-based Third Preference (EB-3). There is no backlog in the EB-2 for most countries while the EB-3 is hopelessly backlogged, Even if the EB-2 for countries like India and China is backlogged, it is less so than the EB-3. Indeed, the EB-3 backlog for India is unimaginable and totally untenable. It is estimated that it will take 70 years for the green card for a person from India who establishes his or her priority date in 2012!

To be classified under the EB-2  pursuant to section 203(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the position must require an advanced degree or its equivalent, which the USCIS in 8 CFR section 204.5(k)(2) defines as a foreign equivalent 4-year bachelor’s degree plus five years of post baccalaureate experience.

In the United States, one normally obtains a master’s degree after completing a 2-year program following a 4-year bachelor’s degree. Thus a student has to undertake 6 years of study in order to be awarded a master’s degree from an accredited US college or university.

It has generally been assumed that a foreign master’s degree, obtained after 6 years of education, would generally be equivalent to a US master’s degree.  EDGE (Electronic Database For Global Education), administered by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers provides information on foreign degree equivalence from educational institutions from around the world. It is treated as gospel truth by the USCIS in determining whether a foreign degree is equivalent for immigration purpose. Till recently, EDGE has correctly said that an  Indian 4-year degree, such as a Bachelor of Technology degree, followed by a 2-year master’s degree, is equivalent to a US master’s degree. On the other hand, a master’s degree following a 2- or 3-year Indian bachelor’s degree only equated to a US bachelor’s degree and not a master’s degree.

It has recently come to our attention, thanks to Natalie Muehlberger of Trustforte Corporation, that EDGE has recently downgraded many Indian master’s degrees. This is how EDGE, a paid  service, describes it now:

Credential Description

Awarded upon completion of 1.5-2 years of study beyond the three-year bachelor’s degree or four year BTech or BEngr degree.

Credential Advice

The Master of Science represents attainment of a level of education comparable to a bachelor’s degree in the United States. 

Thus, regardless of whether the master’s degree is obtained after a 3- year or a 4- year bachelor’s degree program in India, EDGE is now equating both to a US bachelor’s degree. This downgrade of Indian master of science degrees would impact those who would otherwise qualify under the EB-2 as the USCIS closely relies on EDGE. We do hope that EDGE realizes that it is wrong and reverts to its earlier assessment that a master’s degree, following 6 years of education, is equivalent to a US master’s degree and not a bachelor’s degree. In addition, EDGE has also downgraded the Indian MBA, regardless of whether it was preceded by a 4-year engineering degree and the Indian master of science by research degree (which no longer appears in EDGE at present). While EDGE used to maintain that  2 years of coursework in business management leading to a post-graduate diploma from the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, India, was  comparable to a master’s degree in the United States, this degree to has been downgraded to equate to only a US bachelor’s degree since only a three year bachelor’s degree is required

[Updated on 9/2/2013]. EDGE also still finds that an Indian master of technology or engineering degree, and master of computer applications degree, is  equivalent to a US master’s degree. The same logic should hold true for other Indian master of science and MBA degrees, following a 4 year bachelor degree. It is therefore important to constantly check the foreign national’s educational credentials with EDGE before embarking on an employment-based green card sponsorship.

Since USCIS follows EDGE, the beneficiary of an I-140 petition with an Indian master’s in the above situations may be only able to qualify under the EB-2 if he or she can demonstrate a bachelor’s degree (since this master’s degree will still equate to a single source bachelor’s degree) plus 5 years of progressive experience following this degree. If the beneficiary does not have the 5 years of post-baccalaureate experience, he or she will have no choice but to be classified under the EB-3, and if born in India, the green card will materialize after decades.

If EDGE does not revert to its original position with respect to Indian master of science degrees and the MBA, petitioners and their attorneys should still endeavor to convince the USCIS, or then litigate before the AAO and in federal court, that a 2-year Indian master of science degree following a 4- year bachelor’s degree ought to be comparable to a US master’s degree.   In a 2009 USCIS liaison meeting, the agency indicated that it would still be receptive to arguments notwithstanding a contrary EDGE finding:

USCIS considers all sources, including EDGE and AACRAO databases, and has received many evaluations where the evaluators list membership in AACRAO in their credentials and list AACRAO publications as their reference materials. USCIS adjudicators review all evidence in the record and make determinations based on the individual facts of each case. The AAO’s decisions are available to the public and provide an extensive compilation of the results of its findings as to the equivalency of particular foreign degrees. 

The USCIS pursuant to its 2009 guidance ought to be receptive to arguments that an Indian master’s degree following 6 years of post-secondary education is functionally equivalent to a US master’s degree. Otherwise, the EDGE downgrade with Indian master of science and other degrees will strike another blow to Indians, who will then be endlessly mired in the EB-3 even though they qualify for a position that requires an advanced degree. It will also be another example of how the USCIS constantly shifts the goal posts concerning foreign equivalent degrees, adversely and unfairly impacting mostly skilled foreign nationals with Indian degrees.

(The blog was amended on January 18, 2012 to clarify that the downgrade only applies to Indian master of science degrees and a few other degrees but not all Indian master degrees)

UPDATE: EDGE FLIP FLOPS – SHOULD USCIS BE RELYING ON EDGE SO SLAVISHLY?  – JANUARY 20, 2012

The author has learned today that EDGE has again reverted to its former position. It has deleted within the entry that a master of science degree beyond a 4 year degree is equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree. It leaves intact within that entry that a master’s degree following a 3 year bachelor’s degree is equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree. Does this mean that a master of science degree following a 4 year bachelor’s degree is equivalent to a master’s degree? We hope that the USCIS follows this logic and agrees. On the other hand EDGE now has an entry , and this is very strange, indicating that the master of engineering or master of technology degree following a 4 year bachelor of technology or bachelor of engineering degree is equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree. This cannot be the case and must be an error!  In yet another entry, EDGE says that an Indian master of physiotherapy, master of science (nursing), master of science in engineering/technology, master of pharmacy and master of laws, following 4 or 5 year bachelor degree programs is equal to US master’s degree. All this is completely inconsistent with the downgrade, and results in uncertainty for those who rely on EDGE in filing immigrant visa I-140 petitions to get classified under the EB-2. Perhaps, USCIS, given these flip flops and inconsistencies, should no longer treat EDGE as the gospel truth with respect to determining whether these degrees are equivalent to US degrees, and give more credence to justifications provided from other reliable sources determining the accurate equivalence of such degrees.

Cyrus Mehta

TOP 10 POSTS ON THE INSIGHTFUL IMMIGRATION BLOG IN 2011

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Thank you for reading and supporting The Insightful Immigration Blog.  Listed below are the top 10 most viewed blogs in 2011. We will continue to provide insightful commentary on contemporary immigration issues in 2012, and wish all of our supporters and well wishers a very happy New Year! 

1. PREVAILING WAGE DETERMINATIONS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: HOW DO I FILE A PERM LABOR CERTIFICATION? http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/08/prevailing-wage-determinations.html

2. IF EVEN THE CHIEF JUSTICE CAN MISUNDERSTAND IMMIGRATION LAW, HOW CAN WE EXPECT STATES TO ENFORCE IT PROPERLY? REMOVAL ORDERS AND WORK AUTHORIZATION http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/06/if-even-chief-justice-can-misunderstand.html

3. RIGHT TO APPOINTED COUNSEL IN REMOVAL PROCEEDINGS? THE SUPREME COURT MAY HAVE OPENED THE DOOR IN TURNER v. ROGERS http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/06/right-to-appointed-counsel-in-removal.html

4.VISA OPTIONS FOR FOREIGN ENTREPRENEURS IN THE US – WHILE KEEPING AN EYE ON THE POTENTIAL TRAPS AND PITFALLS http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/11/visa-options-for-foreign-entreprenuers.html

5. DO WE HAVE A START-UP VISA FOR ENTREPRENEURS EVEN WHEN CONGRESS HAS NOT LIFTED A FINGER? http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/08/do-we-have-start-up-visa-for.html

6.THE ABSURDITY OF THE BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 2011 http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/01/absurdity-of-birthright-citizenship-act.html

7. HOW FAIR IS THE FAIRNESS FOR HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS ACT? http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-fair-is-fairness-for-high-skilled.html

8. BALCA GETS IT RIGHT!! RECRUITMENT AND THE PREVAILING WAGE DETERMINATION’S VALIDITY PERIOD http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/06/balca-gets-it-right-recruitment-and.html (but see update, BALCA EN BANC SPEAKS ON RECRUITMENT AND THE PREVAILING WAGE VALIDITY PERIOD http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/12/balca-en-banc-speaks-on-recruitment-and.html)

9. B-1 IN LIEU OF H-1B VISA IN JEOPARDY: DON’T THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/05/b-1-in-lieu-of-h-1b-visa-in-jeopardy.html

10. IT’S 9:OO A.M.- DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR H-1B EMPLOYEE IS? AN OVERVIEW OF FDNS SITE VISITS http://cyrusmehta.blogspot.com/2011/12/its-9oo-am-do-you-know-where-your-h-1b.html

Cora-Ann Pestaina

BALCA SAYS THERE IS NO NEED TO LIST EVERY BENEFIT OF EMPLOYMENT IN JOB ADVERTISEMENTS

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by Cora-Ann V. Pestaina

To practitioners who file numerous PERM applications, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) philosophy of solely protecting the U.S. labor market without regard to employers’ efforts, its constantly shifting goal posts, and its frightful game of “gotcha” which we involuntarily enter whenever we file a PERM application, have sadly all become par for the course. But, every so often, a valiant employer fights back and in recent times we have seen the Board of Alien Labor Certifications (BALCA) demonstrate more reason in its decisions. Matter of Emma Willard School, 2010-PER-01101 (BALCA, September 28, 2011) reveals the most recent case of the DOL’s game of “gotcha.” In that case, BALCA held, reversing the Certifying Officer (CO), that there is no obligation for an employer to list every item or condition of employment in its advertisements and listing none does not create an automatic assumption that no employment benefits exist. As a background, an employer has to conduct a good faith recruitment of the labor market in order to obtain labor certification for a foreign national employee. Obtaining labor certification is often the first step when an employer wishes to sponsor a foreign national employee for permanent residence. Under 20 C.F.R. §656.17(f)(7), advertisements must “not contain wages or terms and conditions of employment that are less favorable than those offered the alien.”

In Emma Willard School, the employer, a boarding school, conducted a recruitment effort for the position of “Spanish Instructor” and timely filed an ETA Form 9089. The CO issued an audit notification requesting that the employer submit “a detailed explanation indicating the reason the foreign worker currently resides with the employer.” In its timely response, the employer submitted documentation of the school’s philosophy, which states that the school “offers housing as a resource that benefits the faculty, staff, and program” and that a “significant majority” of teachers and key administrators live in school owned housing. The school’s housing guidelines indicated that the school provided on-campus housing, off-campus housing and dormitory apartments to selected faculty and staff as a benefit of employment.

The CO denied the PERM application citing six reasons for denial, all related to the employer’s failure to indicate, in its advertisements and Notice of Filing, the benefit of employer-subsidized housing. Four of the reasons for denial fell under 20 C.F.R. §656.17(f)(7). According to the CO, because the employer’s advertisements in the newspaper of general circulation, in a local or ethic paper, on the employer’s website and on job search websites did not indicate that the employer offered subsidized housing, the advertisements did not comply with 20 C.F.R. §656.17(f). Because the Notice of Filing also did not list this benefit, one denial reason fell under 20 C.F.R. §656.10(d)(4), which requires that the Notice of Filing contain the information required for advertisements. The final reason for denial fell under 20 C.F.R. §656.10(c)(8), which requires an employer to attest that “the job opportunity has been and is clearly open to any US worker.” The CO held that because the employer did not list the benefit of subsidized housing in its recruitment, the recruitment contained terms and conditions of employment that were less favorable than those offered to the alien, thereby disaffirming the employer’s attestation that the job is open to any US worker.

The employer submitted a request for reconsideration of the denial arguing that the regulations do not mandate that benefits be listed in advertisements. The CO forwarded the case to BALCA. In its brief to BALCA, the employer made the obvious point that many advertisements do not list employment benefits such as health insurance and vacation.

BALCA analogized the issue to the case of an employer not listing the offered wage in its advertisements. The choice not to list the offered wage would not lead to an assumption, on the part of the US worker, that the employer is offering no wage. Similarly, the employer’s choice not to list employment benefits would not lead a US worker to assume that there are no benefits involved in the position. BALCA held that the employer’s recruitment did not contain terms or conditions less favorable than those offered to the alien simply because the employer did not list wages or benefits of the position.

At every step of the persnickety PERM process the DOL claims it is only doing its job to protect US workers, but here it appears that BALCA is finally giving US workers the credit they deserve for being intelligent enough to recognize that a tiny advertisement could not possibly list ALL the terms and conditions of employment. Perhaps BALCA recognized that any US workers who were interested in the position with Emma Willard School would have naturally contemplated whether the boarding school provided boarding to its employees! Therefore, the employer’s decision not to list the subsidized housing benefit in the ad in no way deterred US workers from applying for the position.

Yet, careful not to paint with too broad a brush, BALCA made sure to limit its decision to the facts of the case and to state that “this decision should not be construed as support for an employer never having to offer or disclose a housing benefit to US workers.” Despite BALCA’s timidity, this decision is significant and bears on other situations as well. For instance, an employer whose PERM application was denied because the recruitment did not list a “work from home” benefit, might be able to argue, under Emma Willard School, that it was not required to list all benefits in its recruitment. While the DOL may argue that a “work from home” benefit is different from the subsidized housing benefit, the employer choosing to not list the “work from home” benefit should not serve to deter any US workers from applying for the position especially if the advertisement was placed in a national magazine. US workers are savvy and well aware of the increasing flexibility offered by employers with regard to where they perform the duties of the job. A prospective applicant can also inquire about this, and the advertisement on its own, without the listing of a “work from home” benefit should not deter US workers from applying for the position.

When will the DOL come to realize that US workers are smart enough to discern job advertisements themselves, and do not need this kind of misguided protection resulting in the needless denial of a labor certification for a much needed foreign national worker?

David Isaacson

SOME PRELIMINARY REACTIONS TO THE DISTRICT COURT DECISION REFUSING TO ENJOIN PORTIONS OF ALABAMA’S IMMIGRATION LAW

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By David A. Isaacson

Chief U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama recently issued a memorandum opinion preliminarily enjoining the enforcement of certain portions of Alabama’s new immigration law but upholding other portions. This decision has already attracted substantial criticism, with the New York Times describing it as “dismal”. Additional useful background regarding the decision is available from Immigration Impact. As a follow-up to my previous article on our firm’s website regarding constitutional and practical problems with the Alabama law, it seemed appropriate to examine how Judge Blackburn’s decision does and does not address some of these problems.

Some of the most absurd portions of the statute were struck down, so there is some good news. Judge Blackburn did enjoin the portion of the Alabama statute that barred lawfully admitted refugees, and others such as those with Temporary Protected Status, from attending public universities. She enjoined the portion of the statute that attempted to make it illegal to rent housing to the unlawfully present, by deeming it “harboring”, and she also enjoined the portion of the statute that attempted to criminalize work and the solicitation of employment by an “unauthorized alien”. In addition, she enjoined portions of the statute that would have forbidden companies from deducting wages paid to unauthorized workers as a business expense, and allowed other workers to sue those companies.

Some deeply problematic provisions of the statute were left standing, however. One provision, similar to a provision of Arizona’s much-criticized SB 1070, criminalizes failure to register or carry an alien registration document, in violation of federal law, when committed by “an alien unlawfully present in the United States.” As explained in this author’s previous article on our firm’s website regarding the Arizona law, the application forms used by certain battered women and crime victims to petition for relief under the Violence Against Women Act or for a “U-visa” do not constitute applications for alien registration under the governing regulations. Thus, certain such battered women and crime victims may arguably be in violation of the federal statutes regarding alien registration, but as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, it is exceedingly unlikely that the federal government would ever pursue such people for those technical violations. While Alabama may have somewhat reduced the set of truly absurd potential violations of its statute by covering only those who are “unlawfully present” rather than Arizona’s reference to “a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States” — since battered women actually granted deferred action will not qualify as unlawfully present even though they likely also do not qualify as maintaining authorization to remain in the United States — the statute could still be applied by Alabama to applicants for VAWA or U-visa relief who have not yet been granted relief. This is merely an example of why it is a bad idea, as a matter of our constitutional structure, to allow a state to meddle in a field so comprehensively occupied by the federal government. Alabama’s attempt to reserve the right to pursue such technical violations of the alien registration statutes, even in cases where the federal government does not wish to, should have been held pre-empted.

Another problematic provision that was left standing by Judge Blackburn’s opinion again closely resembles one of the provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070. According to Section 12(e) of Alabama’s law, police officers must attempt to ascertain the citizenship and immigration status of any person they detain, if “reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States” and unless “the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.” Along the lines of Arizona’s SB 1070, Alabama’s statute prohibits law enforcement officers from considering “race, color, or national origin . . . except to the extent permitted by the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Alabama of 1901.” As with the Arizona law, the logical implication is that to the extent consideration of race, color or national original may be constitutional under whichever of the United States Constitution or the state constitution is more permissive on the subject, the law enforcement officials and agencies of Arizona are invited to engage in it. In addition, the statute’s list of documents which a person can present and thus be “presumed not to be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States” includes a “foreign passport with an unexpired United States Visa and a corresponding stamp or notation by the United States Department of Homeland Security indicating the bearer’s admission to the United States” but does not include any option for an expired visa and a document from DHS showing an unexpired period of authorized stay. If the “stamp or notation” indicates that the bearer’s period of admission and authorized stay is unexpired, it is not at all clear why it should matter if the bearer’s U.S. visa is expired or not. There is no logical reason to subject anyone who obtains an extension of stay or change of status with a validity period beyond the expiration date of their visa to more extensive detention while their status is electronically verified with DHS, if their DHS-issued Form I-94 clearly shows that their status is still valid. This legal illogic gives still more weight to the complaint made by the federal government that DHS may now be overwhelmed by requests for information and that substantial burdens may be placed by Arizona’s law on lawfully present immigrants (and nonimmigrants). By meddling in areas which its legislators quite apparently did not fully understand, Alabama has created a system in which nonimmigrants who have been granted a change of status or extension of stay beyond the validity of their initial visa, as well as asylees and those having Temporary Protected Status, may be detained and an inquiry made to DHS because such persons lack “an unexpired United States Visa.” This, too, should have been held preempted and was not.

Judge Blackburn’s memorandum opinion also refused to preliminarily enjoin sections of the Alabama law that render unenforceable any contract entered into by an unlawfully present alien, with certain limited exceptions, and forbid unlawfully present aliens to enter into certain business transactions with the state and its subdivisions, such as obtaining a driver’s license or business license. The difficulty with these sections is that, as explained in my previous article on our firm’s website, unlawful presence, insofar as it is a defined term, does not correspond neatly to a set of people that it would have made any sense to subject to such prohibitions. Alabama appears to have forbidden from getting a driver’s license, or entering into enforceable contracts, many people with pending applications for adjustment of status or cancellation of removal filed for the first time in removal proceedings, who are considered unlawfully present but who may become lawful permanent residents if their applications succeed. Moreover, Alabama has forbidden many people who are specifically authorized to be employed in the United States from getting driver’s licenses or entering into binding contracts in connection with that employment (unless perhaps the employment contracts fall within the terms of the statute’s exception for “a contract authorized by federal law”, which seems a gray area at best), since an applicant for adjustment of status can apply for employment authorization under 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(c)(9), and an applicant for cancellation of removal can do so under 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(c)(10). (Indeed, even some people who have been ordered removed may be authorized to accept employment while challenging that order in various ways or awaiting removal, as explained in a previous blog piece by this author.) Once again, by meddling in an area of law that is the responsibility of the federal government and that its legislators apparently did not fully understand, Alabama has created the possibility for truly absurd outcomes.

Finally, Judge Blackburn refused to preliminarily enjoin the section of the Alabama law that attempts to require students enrolling in public school to provide documents regarding their citizenship and immigration status. While it is conceivable that the section’s apparent lack of a penalty provision might save it from unconstitutionality, there is some tension, to the extent that the statute may be an effort to coerce unlawfully present children not to attend Alabama public schools, between this provision and the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), forbidding a state to prevent children from attending public schools based on their immigration status. It has been reported that upon the coming into effect of this portion of the statute after Judge Blackburn’s decision, “Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools” because fear has caused “scores of immigrant families” to withdraw their kids from school or keep them home. Alabama should not be permitted to do indirectly what the Supreme Court has forbidden it to do directly.

Judge Blackburn’s memorandum opinion only addressed whether to grant a preliminary injunction, so it is still possible that she may reverse herself before the conclusion of the case at the district court level. If she does not, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit or the Supreme Court may need to step in to reverse those portions of her recent decision that uphold particularly problematic portions of Alabama’s law.

David Isaacson

THE POTENTIAL REACH OF KHALID V. HOLDER: HOW THE 5TH CIRCUIT INTERPRETED THE CSPA AND HOW SOME OUTSIDE ITS TERRITORY MAY BE ABLE TO BENEFIT

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By David A. Isaacson

In its recent decision in the case of Khalid v. Holder, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected the 2009 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) in Matter of Wang. The Fifth Circuit in Khalid held that a derivative beneficiary of an immigrant petition, whose adjusted age even under the Child Status Protection Act (“CSPA”) is above 21, can under section 203(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) retain the priority date originally given to the principal beneficiary and proceed in the 2B preference category with respect to that principal beneficiary. That is, if your aunt or your grandfather filed a petition for your parent when you were 14 years old, and the petition took one year to process, but a visa number was not available for another 10 years, you can retain the family’s place in the priority-date waiting line as the adult son or daughter of your now-lawful-permanent-resident parent, under the 2B preference, rather than going to the back of the years-long waiting line for an immigrant visa number. The BIA had found in Matter of Wang that such priority date retention was impermissible, but the Fifth Circuit held in Khalid that this ignored the plain meaning of the statute.

In rejecting the BIA’s decision in Matter of Wang, the Fifth Circuit also rejected the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Li v. Renaud regarding the same CSPA provision, criticized by this author in a previous blog post The Second Circuit had reached essentially the same conclusion as Matter of Wang by finding the CSPA to unambiguously preclude retention of a priority date “to use for a different family petition filed by a different petitioner." The Ninth Circuit in Cuellar de Osorio v. Mayorkas found the statute to be ambiguous and the BIA’s interpretation in Wang a reasonable one, a conclusion also inconsistent with the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Khalid.

The BIA itself had previously taken a more generous view, before changing its mind: Matter of Wang overturned a previous unpublished decision called Matter of Maria T. Garcia, which did allow the aged-out child of a family petition beneficiary to retain the priority date that she previously had shared with her parent. The Fifth Circuit in Khalid found Matter of Garcia to represent the correct approach.

Additional background regarding the CSPA in general and Matter of Wang in particular, for those who are interested, can be found in an earlier article written by this author for our firm’s website. The portion of the CSPA in question, now INA § 203(h), reads as follows:

(h) RULES FOR DETERMINING WHETHER CERTAIN ALIENS ARE CHILDREN-

(1) IN GENERAL.– For purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d), a determination of whether an alien satisfies the age requirement in the matter preceding subparagraph (A) of section 101(b)(1) shall be made using–

(A) the age of the alien on the date on which an immigrant visa number becomes available for such alien (or, in the case of subsection (d), the date on which an immigrant visa number became available for the alien’s parent), but only if the alien has sought to acquire the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence within one year of such availability; reduced by

(B) the number of days in the period during which the applicable petition described in paragraph (2) was pending.

(2) PETITIONS DESCRIBED- The petition described in this paragraph is—

(A) with respect to a relationship described in subsection (a)(2)(A), a petition filed under section 204 for classification of an alien child under subsection (a)(2)(A); or

(B) with respect to an alien child who is a derivative beneficiary under subsection (d), a petition filed under section 204 for classification of the alien’s parent under subsection (a), (b), or (c).

(3) RETENTION OF PRIORITY DATE- If the age of an alien is determined under paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or older for the purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d), the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.

(4) APPLICATION TO SELF-PETITIONS- Paragraphs (1) through (3) shall apply to self-petitioners and derivatives of self-petitioners.

It is available online as enacted into the U.S. Code at 8 U.S.C. § 1153.

In Matter of Wang, the BIA found that the language of § 203(h)(3) was ambiguous, but that legislative intent showed § 203(h)(3) to codify an existing regulatory practice in which priority dates could be retained when the same petitioner filed a second petition for the same beneficiary. As the BIA explained, this practice was "limited to a lawful permanent resident’s son or daughter who was previously eligible as a derivative beneficiary under a second-preference spousal petition filed by that same lawful permanent resident." Outside that context, the BIA found § 203(h)(3) inapplicable to derivative beneficiaries.

As the Fifth Circuit pointed out in Khalid, however, the BIA’s finding of ambiguity ignores the internal cross-references in § 203(h) and the statute’s clear identification of the petitions to which it applies. Subsection (h)(2), entitled “Petitions described”, makes clear that INA § 203(h) as a whole applies to all derivative beneficiaries, as well as 2A child beneficiaries. Moreover, “(h)(3) expressly references (h)(1), which in turn expressly references (h)(2).” Particularly because subsection (h)(3) expressly applies “for the purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d)” just as subsections (h)(1) and (h)(2) do, there is no textual basis for excluding from the protection of (h)(3) the derivative beneficiaries under subsection (d) who are all expressly included by (h)(2). Thus, as the Fifth Circuit said in Khalid, “subsection (h)(2) directly answers the question that the BIA found that Congress left unanswered.”

The Second Circuit’s decision in Li is similarly convincingly refuted by the Fifth Circuit in Khalid. Li’s holdingthat a priority date could not be retained “to use for a different family petition filed by a different petitioner” was based on the notion that there is no “appropriate category” to convert to in the sort of scenario at issue in Li and Khalid, because there is, for example, “no family preference category for grandchildren of LPRs”. The Fifth Circuit in Khalid aptly notes that this latter criticism only makes sense if one assumes that a change in petitioners is indeed necessarily impermissible, and that no such rule against a change in petitioners appears anywhere in the text of the statute. Proceeding on this unwritten assumption does leads to the conclusion that, as the BIA held in Matter of Wang, § 203(h)(3) only protects the derivative child beneficiaries of second-preference petitions for a spouse, who were already protected by regulation—but in that case, as the Fifth Circuit noted, “the only difference between the regulation and the Li court’s reading of subsection (h)(3) is that the statute would relieve the spouse of the burden of filing a new petition, since the conversion would now be automatic.” It is, as the Khalid court pointed out, unlikely “that this meager benefit was all Congress meant to accomplish through subsection (h)(3), especially where nothing in the statute singles out derivative beneficiaries of second-preference petitions for special treatment.” Reading the statute as it is written gives much larger and more appropriate significance to § 203(h)(3).

Beyond the legal virtues of the Fifth Circuit’s decision, however, it is worth examining the practical implications of its ruling for those who are not lucky enough to live within the boundaries of the Fifth Circuit, that is, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. As Cyrus Mehta pointed out in a recent blog piece, one way for § 203(h)(3) to benefit many more outside of the Fifth Circuit would be for Attorney General Eric Holder to issue a decision acquiescing in Khalid on a nationwide basis, just as the BIA on the Attorney General’s behalf has acquiesced in favorable Court of Appeals decisions in the past. Unless and until such action is taken, however, one question which arises is whether those who seek the benefit of Khalid may be able to obtain it through litigation even if they reside outside the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit.

In cases where the original beneficiary who has now become an LPR seeks to recapture the old priority date under § 203(h)(3) for their derivative son or daughter by filing a new I-130 petition, obtaining the benefit of Khalid may be difficult, at least when the parties do not happen to reside within the Fifth Circuit. Such I-130 petitions will generally be processed either by the California Service Center, which is located within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (home to Cuellar de Osorio), or the Vermont Service Center, which is located within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (home to Li). The initial filing and receipt by USCIS of an I-130 petition will usually take place at the USCIS lockbox in Chicago, within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which has not yet ruled on the correctness of Matter of Wang. As an initial matter, therefore, USCIS is likely to follow Matter of Wang in such cases.

If a lawsuit were filed against USCIS to attempt to force compliance with the proper meaning of INA § 203(h)(3) as found in Khalid, the statute governing venue would be 28 U.S.C. § 1391. For actions against U.S. government agencies, 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e) provides:

(e) A civil action in which a defendant is an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof acting in his official capacity or under color of legal authority, or an agency of the United States, or the United States, may, except as otherwise provided by law, be brought in any judicial district in which

  1. (1) a defendant in the action resides,
  2. (2) a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred, or a substantial part of property that is the subject of the action is situated, or
  3. (3) the plaintiff resides if no real property is involved in the action.

Leaving aside Fifth Circuit residents, therefore, such a lawsuit could only be brought in a district within the Fifth Circuit if that was where “a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred”—which is, in the case of an I-130 petition, unlikely for the reasons explained above. For those residing in a circuit other than the Fifth, Ninth, or Second – one which has not yet confronted Matter of Wang – an I-130 filing followed by litigation may still be worthwhile, but would likely have to go up to the relevant Court of Appeals to succeed.

The filing of a new I-130 petition following the adjustment of the original beneficiary, however, is not the only way to seek CSPA protection for a derivative son or daughter under the logic of Khalid. In Matter of Garcia, which the Fifth Circuit in Khalid cited approvingly, the BIA made quite clear that it was the original petition filed for the adjustment applicant’s mother that rendered her eligible for adjustment using the old priority date, after having been automatically converted to a second-preference petition. An additional petition was not necessary; Ms. Garcia was permitted to seek adjustment of status based on the converted old petition. Indeed, the Fifth Circuit in Khalid described the non-necessity of filing a second petition as the one (meager) benefit which 203(h)(3) would provide, at least in 2A derivative cases, even under the Second Circuit’s narrow interpretation. Thus, where visa numbers are available for the appropriate priority date in the 2B preference category, those seeking the benefit of Khalid’s interpretation of the CSPA should be able to simply file a derivative I-485 application for adjustment of status based on the deemed converted petition, and challenging any denial or rejection in federal court, without the intervening step of a new I-130 petition.

Derivative adjustment applications in family-based cases, unfortunately, are filed with the USCIS Chicago lockbox, within the Seventh Circuit where Matter of Wang has not been struck down, and are then generally transferred to the local office in the area where the applicant resides, which for applicants not having the good fortune to reside within the Fifth Circuit will also not be in an area definitively outside the grasp of Matter of Wang. Derivative adjustments in employment-based cases based on a pending or approved I-140 petition, however, are, at least for those living in roughly the eastern half of the U.S., filed with the USCIS lockbox in Dallas or Lewisville in Texas, and generally processed by the Texas Service Center before perhaps being sent to a local office for an interview. Specifically, the area in question includes Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, and West Virginia. For applicants living in those states and territories, if a derivative I-485 based on an I-140 is filed and denied or rejected based on Matter of Wang, it appears that “a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim” will have occurred in Texas. (For those applicants in the western and midwestern states not included in the above list, sadly, their I-485 applications will go to the Phoenix Lockbox in the Ninth Circuit and perhaps then the Nebraska Service Center in the Eighth Circuit, which has not yet ruled on Matter of Wang.)

Thus, if the son or daughter of an I-140 beneficiary who would benefit from the Khalid interpretation of the CSPA, residing in one of the listed states within Texas lockbox jurisdiction, files a derivative adjustment application along with their parent’s I-140-based application without awaiting a redundant I-130 by their parent, it would appear that the rejection or denial of that application could be potentially challenged in a Texas federal district court, located within the Fifth Circuit and bound by Khalid. Such a challenge to the legally erroneous denial (or rejection) of an adjustment application by USCIS would be brought under the Administrative Procedure Act, as explained by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Pinho v. Gonzales, 432 F.3d 193 (3d Cir. 2005). Some other circuit courts of appeals have previously rejected the logic of Pinho, but the Fifth Circuit is not among them; the question of district court jurisdiction over legal error in the denial of an adjustment application, outside the context of removal proceedings, appears to be an open one in the Fifth Circuit.

Due to this jurisdictional uncertainty and the possibility that DHS could avoid the problem by initiating removal proceedings in the beneficiary’s home location, such an approach would be quite risky for any derivative beneficiary residing outside the Fifth Circuit who was not maintaining nonimmigrant status (and was utilizing, for example, INA § 245(i)). However, in those instances where the adult son or daughter of an I-140 beneficiary has acquired a nonimmigrant status of his or her own, and resides in the half of the U.S. that is under the jurisdiction of the Texas lockbox, attempting to file a derivative adjustment application under Khalid without an intervening I-130 petition may be an approach worth considering if visa numbers in the 2B preference category are available for the relevant priority date.

Cora-Ann Pestaina

PREVAILING WAGE DETERMINATIONS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: HOW DO I FILE A PERM LABOR CERTIFICATION?

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by Cora-Ann V. Pestaina



The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced that the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) National Prevailing Wage Center (NPWC) has temporarily suspended processing of prevailing wage determinations (PWD), redeterminations, and Center Director Reviews. The NPWC handles PWDs for the PERM labor certification, H-1B, H-1B1 (Chile/Singapore), H-2B and E-3 programs. As a result of the suspension, prevailing wage requests filed since early June 2011 are still pending. Previously, such requests were routinely processed in 3-4 weeks.

In response to practitioners’ inquiries concerning pending requests, the NPWC has been issuing the following e-mail:

The OFLC National Prevailing Wage Center is experiencing delays in processing prevailing wage determinations as it is currently working to reissue certain determinations to comply with a court order issued June 15, 2011 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register on June 28, 2011, and a Final Rule will be published on August 1. All Center resources are currently being utilized to comply with this court order. The processing of Prevailing Wage Determinations, redeterminations, and Center Director Reviews has been temporarily suspended. Processing will resume as soon as full compliance with the court order has been completed by OFLC. If you have further questions concerning your PWD, please contact 202-693-3010.

In an August 30, 2010 decision in CATA v. Solis the District Court ordered the DOL to promulgate new H-2B prevailing wage regulations. When the DOL made a decision to delay, by almost one year, the effective date of those regulations, the Federal Court found that the DOL violated the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing the delay without engaging in notice and comment. The Court also found that the DOL acted in contravention of the Immigration and Nationality Act because it justified the delay by pointing to potential hardship to employers—a consideration that was outside the scope of the DOL’s congressional mandate. The year-long delay in implementing the new wage regulations would require the continued payment of a lower and invalid wage to H-2B workers. In a June 15, 2011 court order, the Court mandated a change in the effective date of those regulations.

In order to comply with the Court order, the DOL issued a final rule published in the Federal Register on August 1, 2011, with an effective date of September 30, 2011. There are existing H-2B temporary labor certifications covering work to be performed after September 30, 2011, for which the previously issued PWDs no longer apply. The NPWC is now utilizing all of its resources to reissue approximately 4000 PWDs to reflect the new H-2B wage rates that will apply for H-2B employment on or after September 30, 2011. In the rule published on August 1, 2011, the DOL indicated that they will be able to reissue all of the required H-2B wage determinations before October 1, 2011 but not before August 31, 2011.

The temporary suspension of processing on PWDs greatly impacts the PERM labor certification process. PERM is the first step of the green card process for foreign nationals seeking permanent residence through their employment. The PWD is an extremely important component of the process and pursuant to 20 C.F.R. §656.40, obtaining a PWD is a mandatory step under PERM. In accordance with 20 C.F.R. §656.40(c) PWDs are issued with a validity period between 90 days and 1 year from the date of determination and in order to use a PWD, the employer must file the PERM application or begin required recruitment within the validity period of the PWD.

Under 20 C.F.R. § 656.10, the employer must post the Notice of Filing for at least 10 consecutive business days between 30 and 180 days before filing the PERM application and the Notice of Filing must contain a wage that is equal to or greater than the PWD. In addition, under 20 C.F.R. §656.17, the mandatory recruitment steps must be conducted at least 30 days, but no more than 180 days, before the filing of the application. Employers who commenced PERM recruitment prior to obtaining the PWD may now have to watch the recruitment expire if the PWD is not issued in time. The employer may have to conduct new recruitment once the NPWC resumes processing of PWDs.

Conducting new recruitment could be a very expensive process for the employer. But, beyond that, the inability of the employer to file a PERM application on behalf of a foreign national in H-1B status may have more far-reaching effects. §106(a) of the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act (AC21) allows one to apply for a 7th year H-1B extension if a labor certification or an I-140 petition was filed 365 days prior to the end of the 6th year in H-1B status.

Accordingly, if, due to the current suspension of processing, an employer is unable to file the PERM prior to the commencement of the foreign national’s 6th year in H-1B status, this may affect the foreign national’s ability to extend his or her H-1B status at the end of the 6th year.

There are a few steps employers may take to cope with the current delays in processing and to ensure that they are able to timely file their PERM applications and utilize recruitment before it expires or to protect the foreign national’s ability to extend H-1B status in the US.

Utilize a previous PWD



An employer is permitted to use the same PWD for multiple PERM applications if the PWD is for the same occupation and skill level; the same wage source is applicable; and the same area of intended employment is involved. Therefore, a PWD issued in relation to a previous PERM could potentially be used for other PERMs.

Utilize an expired PWD



If the employer commenced its earliest recruitment during the PWD’s validity period, then there is clearly no need to obtain a new PWD and the employer may file the PERM application utilizing the expired PWD.



The DOL previously denied PERM applications where the employer commenced recruitment before the PWD’s validity period and filed the PERM application after the PWD had expired. However, under the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals’ (BALCA) recent decision in Matter of Horizon Computer Services, Inc. 2010-PER-00746 (May. 25, 2011), the employer can rely on an expired PWD in the filing of a PERM application if the employer initiated at least one recruitment step during the PWD’s validity period. That is, the first day of at least one form of recruitment must fall within the PWD validity period. Conducting or initiating all recruitment prior to the PWD’s validity period and then filing after the PWD has expired will likely still result in a denial of the PERM application. The DOL has not yet indicated that it will follow Matter of Horizon Computer Services and employers who intend to rely on this case ought to bear in mind that the employer in that case initiated MOST of its recruitment during the PWD validity period. (See my previous blogs on this topic at http://tiny.cc/mtv39 and http://tiny.cc/9u8zp.)

Predicting the PWD

Practitioners can predict what level and wage will be assigned to any position by going through the same analysis in which the DOL will engage. The Prevailing Wage Guidance (See “Prevailing Wage Determination Policy Guidance for Nonagricultural Immigration Programs,” published on AILA InfoNet at Doc. No. 10019468 (posted Jan. 4, 2010)) provides a detailed description of the four levels, as well as a worksheet at Appendix C and instructions specifying five steps to determine the prevailing wage level. Once the PWD has been predicted, the employer can post the Notice of Filing. This way, the employer will not be forced to wait until the NPWC resumes processing and actually issues a PWD in order to post the Notice of Filing. If the Notice of Filing has already been posted and the employer has complied with the mandatory 30-day quiet period, once the NPWC issues the PWD, the employer may quickly proceed to file the PERM application. If the employer is clearly offering a wage that is excess of any PWD that the NPWC could issue, then the employer need not estimate the PWD and need not wait for the PWD before posting the Notice of Filing.

In the event that the NPWC issues a PWD that exceeds the predicted wage listed on the Notice of Filing, the employer will have no choice but to post a new Notice of Filing bearing the new, higher wage. If the wage was listed in any other forms of recruitment, then that recruitment will have to be restarted. All of this will delay filing of the PERM. The employer will have to conduct precise calculations to ensure that all recruitment occurs within the 30 – 180 day timeframe prior to filing a PERM application.

Hopefully, come October 1st, the NPWC will resume processing on PWDs, etc. As usual, these requests will be processed on a first come, first served (FIFO) basis and no expedite requests will be accepted. Practitioners must continue to file requests for PWDs to secure a place in the lengthening queue.

David Isaacson

LEAVING TOO MUCH FOR ANOTHER DAY: WHAT THE SECOND CIRCUIT’S RECENT CSPA DECISION MISSED IN AGREEING WITH THE RESULT OF MATTER OF WANG

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By David A. Isaacson

In its recent decision in Li v. Renaud, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that a derivative beneficiary of a family-based petition, whose adjusted age even under the Child Status Protection Act (“CSPA”) is above 21, cannot use section 203(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) to retain the priority date originally given to the principal beneficiary with respect to a petition in the 2B preference category by that principal beneficiary. That is, if your grandfather filed a petition for your father when you were 14 years old, and the petition took one year to process, but a visa number was not available for another 10 years, you cannot retain the family’s place in the priority-date waiting line now that you count as over 21 after subtracting the year that the petition was pending; instead, you will have to go to the back of the years-long waiting line for an immigrant visa number.

In so holding, the Second Circuit essentially approved the result reached by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) in its Matter of Wang decision in 2009, although for somewhat different reasons. In the process, however, the Second Circuit appears to have overlooked the significance of its reasoning as applied to employment-based petitions, a subject which was deliberately left for another day but which I would argue sheds substantial light on why the Second Circuit’s decision in Li was incorrect.Additional background regarding the CSPA in general and Matter of Wang in particular can be found in an earlier article written by this author for our firm’s website. The section construed by Matter of Wang and Li v. Renaud, INA § 203(h), reads as follows:

(h) RULES FOR DETERMINING WHETHER CERTAIN ALIENS ARE CHILDREN-

(1) IN GENERAL.– For purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d), a determination of whether an alien satisfies the age requirement in the matter preceding subparagraph (A) of section 101(b)(1) shall be made using–

(A) the age of the alien on the date on which an immigrant visa number becomes available for such alien (or, in the case of subsection (d), the date on which an immigrant visa number became available for the alien’s parent), but only if the alien has sought to acquire the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence within one year of such availability; reduced by

(B) the number of days in the period during which the applicable petition described in paragraph (2) was pending.

(2) PETITIONS DESCRIBED- The petition described in this paragraph is—

(A) with respect to a relationship described in subsection (a)(2)(A), a petition filed under section 204 for classification of an alien child under subsection (a)(2)(A); or

(B) with respect to an alien child who is a derivative beneficiary under subsection (d), a petition filed under section 204 for classification of the alien’s parent under subsection (a), (b), or (c).

(3) RETENTION OF PRIORITY DATE- If the age of an alien is determined under paragraph (1) to be 21 years of age or older for the purposes of subsections (a)(2)(A) and (d), the alien’s petition shall automatically be converted to the appropriate category and the alien shall retain the original priority date issued upon receipt of the original petition.

(4) APPLICATION TO SELF-PETITIONS- Paragraphs (1) through (3) shall apply to self-petitioners and derivatives of self-petitioners.

Enacted into the U.S. Code at 8 U.S.C. § 1153(h)(3), this section can be found online within 8 U.S.C. § 1153 .

In Matter of Wang, the BIA had overturned a previous unpublished decision called Matter of Maria T. Garcia, which did allow the aged-out child of a family preference petition beneficiary to retain the priority date that she previously had shared with her parent. The BIA found that the language of § 203(h)(3) was ambiguous, but that legislative intent showed § 203(h)(3) to codify an existing regulatory practice in which priority dates could be retained when the same petitioner filed a second petition for the same beneficiary. As the BIA explained, this practice was “limited to a lawful permanent resident’s son or daughter who was previously eligible as a derivative beneficiary under a second-preference spousal petition filed by that same lawful permanent resident.” Outside that context, the BIA found § 203(h)(3) inapplicable to derivative beneficiaries.
The Second Circuit in Li went a step further, holding that the statutory language was not even ambiguous, and that one need not resort to legislative intent to find that a priority date could not be retained “to use for a different family petition filed by a different petitioner.” Under circumstances such as the grandfather/child/grandchild fact pattern noted earlier (modeled on the facts of Li), the Second Circuit said, there is no “appropriate category” to convert to, because there is, for example, “no family preference category for grandchildren of LPRs”.
In footnote 1 of the Li opinion, at the urging of amicus curiae Mohammed Golam Azam, the Second Circuit made clear that they were leaving the issue of employment-based petitions for another day, and not determining how § 203(h)(3) applies to such petitions. The problem with this well-intentioned effort not to decide an issue unnecessarily is that it allowed the court to avert its eyes from the implications of the Liholding in the employment-based context, implications which I would argue suggest a problem with the entire holding.

As the reader will note from the quoted text of INA § 203(h) above, § 203(h)(2) specifically applies § 203(h) to derivative beneficiaries under § 203(d) not just of family-based petitions covered by § 203(a), but also of petitions in employment-based cases covered by § 203(b) and in diversity cases covered by § 203(c). Moreover, § 203(h)(3) specifically mentions subsection (d), pertaining to derivative beneficiaries, so we know that § 203(h)(2) doesn’t just apply to principal beneficiaries under § 203(a)(2)(A), children of Lawful Permanent Residents (“LPRs”) petitioned-for under the “2A” preference, who age out and must use the 2B preference for adult sons and daughters. Rather, the structure of § 203(h) read as a whole clearly indicates that the CSPA mechanisms apply to employment-based cases just as well as to family-based cases, and that priority-date retention applies to derivative beneficiaries just as much as to principal beneficiaries.

In the employment-based context, however, the reasoning of Li, if taken to its logical conclusion, suggests that § 203(h)(3) has no role to play at all. Being the child of the beneficiary of an employment-based petition will never qualify as a preference category in its own right, any more than being the grandson of a family petitioner is its own category does, and the derivative beneficiary will never (or almost never) be the direct beneficiary of a second petition by the same employer. Perhaps the Second Circuit in a later case will choose to shy away from this implication and prevent its precedent from going further down the wrong path, but that does appear to be the direction in which Li points it.
On the other hand, § 203(h)(3) does have work to do in the context of § 203(b) petitions if we adopt the interpretation that Li and Matter of Wang rejected, the one previously offered by the BIA in Matter of Maria T. Garcia: that the appropriate category for an aged-out derivative under § 203(d) is the 2B category, under INA § 203(a)(2)(B), with respect to the original beneficiary. This interpretation allows the derivative beneficiary to continue in essentially the same relation to the principal beneficiary that has existed all along, modified for the aging-out. It should not come as a surprise that the process allowed by this interpretation requires awaiting the LPR status of the principal beneficiary, because the defining characteristic of derivative beneficiaries under § 203(d) is always their entitlement to “the same order of consideration . . . if accompanying or following to join[] the spouse or parent”—to quote directly from the text of § 203(d) as enacted at 8 U.S.C. § 1153. By definition, one cannot accompany or follow to join a parent who has not yet become an LPR, whether or not the CSPA is involved.
The irrelevance of § 203(h)(3) with regard to § 203(b) derivatives caused by the interpretation in Li is a contextual clue in the statute that this interpretation is incorrect. Interpretations which render part of a statute superfluous are, and should be, disfavored. According to the logic of Li, it appears that even though § 203(h)(2)(B) mentions family-based petitions under § 203(a) and employment-based petitions under § 203(b) in precise parallel as contexts in which the entirety of § 203(h) should apply to derivative beneficiaries under § 203(d), and even though § 203(d) is specifically cited in § 203(h)(3) as a context in which that particular subsection applies, § 203(h)(3) may not apply at all to § 203(d) derivative beneficiaries of § 203(b) employment-based petitions. Whether or not one agrees with the BIA’s policy decision in Matter of Wang (which this author finds overly harsh) as applied to a statute thought by the BIA to be ambiguous, it certainly seems excessive given this clue to read the statute as unambiguously mandating such a result. And yet that is what the Second Circuit did in Li.
There is a famous saying, often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, that you should never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Courts are often properly reluctant to follow this maxim, because it is a principal of judicial decision-making in our system of law that a court should not reach out to decide questions unnecessarily. But when a court too cavalierly puts off until tomorrow a question which is actually important to the resolution of the issue it is deciding, it may come to an incorrect result. It appears that this may be what occurred in Li.