The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs’ May 2023 Visa Bulletin shows a trend of backlogs and slowdowns in the employment-based immigrant visa or green card process.
On May 24, 2022, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an expansion of the agency’s premium processing service for certain pending Form I-140 petitions in the EB-1C multinational executive and manager and the EB-2 National Interest Waiver (NIW) categories, which have experienced lengthy processing delays in recent years.
On February 18, 2021, the Biden administration formally introduced a new immigration bill in Congress—the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. The bill, marshaled by Representative Linda Sanchez (D-CA) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), includes provisions that would impact all aspects of what the administration considers a broken immigration system.
The Beltway Buzz is a weekly update summarizing labor and employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how what’s happening in Washington, D.C. could impact your business.
On October 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published its long-speculated interim final rule, “Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States.” The new rule will update how the existing “four-tiered wage structure based on the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) wage survey” is calculated for purposes of determining prevailing wages. The rule goes into effect immediately on October 8, 2020, with no notice period. These changes will result in significant wage increases to the wage levels for all four levels of the OES survey, across all occupations. The wage adjustments will affect the processing of H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 temporary work visas, as well as permanent labor certification program (PERM) applications.
On August 3, 2020, the Trump Administration issued an executive order (EO) directing the secretaries of the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security to “take action … to protect United States workers from any adverse effects on wages and working conditions caused by the employment of H-1B [workers].”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently asked Congress for $1.2 billion in emergency funding in order to continue operations. USCIS also intends to impose a 10 percent surcharge on new immigration applications to repay U.S. taxpayers for this emergency funding.
As employers work through issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to evaluate the immigration considerations for employees on various work visas. Some of the most common alternatives to H-1B visas include foreign nationals who hold E-1, E-2, L-1, O-1, TN, and F-1 visas. While these types of work visas do not have the same legal requirements relating to prevailing wages and changes in work locations as H-1B visas, there are important considerations for these employees as well.
