Archive for April, 2009

USCIS Announces H-1B Cap Not Hit Yet

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Today USCIS issued an emailed press release indicating that it would continue to accept H-1B petitions subject to the 2010 cap, meaning that they do not think they received enough petitions to meet the caps yet.

We do not yet know how many petitions USCIS received, nor how long the remainder of the 85,000 H-1B “slots” will last, but will continue to monitor the situation.

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New Guidance Issued for Employers on Application of the Employ American Workers Act

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

The Federal Reserve recently issued guidance in the form of an FAQ for employers who accept funds under Section 13 of the Federal Reserve Act (FRA) as part of the Employ American Workers Act.

Although the government has published a list of TARP recipients, no such comprehensive list of FRA Section 13 recipients exists. However, in its new guidance, the government explains which entities are considered to be recipients of Section 13 funds. The determination depends upon the type of borrowing arrangement between the entity and the Federal Reserve. Interestingly, the guidance explains that once a recipient has paid back the funds received under Section 13, they are no longer subject to the H-1B additional attestation requirements.

Employers that receive funding under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or FRA Section 13  funding will be required to take additional steps when filing H-1B temporary worker petitions with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. Specifically, these employers will be required to make attestations as part of the H-1B application that they took good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for the position for which the H-1B worker is sought and that no U.S. worker was displaced by the H-1B worker in an equivalent position.

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Use of the New Form I-9 is Scheduled to Become Effective April 3, 2009

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Klasko, Rulon, Stock & Seltzer, LLP wishes to remind our clients that the new I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification Form, will become effective on April 3, 2009. The new I-9 form revises the list of acceptable documents that employers may accept to verify the identity and work eligibility of newly hired employees.  It can be obtained from USCIS at http://www.uscis.gov/i-9.

The changes to Form I-9 require that all of the documents presented by an employee to establish work eligibility are unexpired. Additionally, the interim final rule adds several new documents to the list of acceptable documents to establish a new hire’s identity and work eligibility. Finally, Section 1 of the Form makes some changes to the part of the form in which new hires attest to their immigration status.

(more…)

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The Real Impact of H-1Bs

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

There’s a great post by Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith on Microsoft’s public policy blog in favor of increasing the number of H-1Bs in the United States.  An amazing statistic:

While the number of visa holders is very small compared to the U.S.
workforce, their contribution is huge.  For example, last year 35
percent of Microsoft’s patent applications in the U.S. came from new
inventions by visa and green card holders. 

I’ve always said the H-1B visa was for “insourcing,” not “outsourcing” – and each H-1B worker here buys or rents a house, pays taxes, eats out, shops at Best Buy – so that sending talented people home makes no economic or policy sense.  The scope of the benefit beyond the immediate economic impact is breathtaking, though – what if 35 percent of Microsoft’s new products were developed in India, instead of Washington?

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iCERT for LCAs Coming April 15

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I wish this post could be tagged with “April Fool’s,” but now that we are over the hump of the H-1B filing deadline, we can turn our attention to what the Department of Labor will be doing to the Labor Condition Application (LCA) system.  DOL is going to be managing the LCA and PERM systems through the same web portal, which they call “iCERT.”  The LCA portion of iCERT will be available April 15, and there will be a 30-day transition before iCERT becomes the exlusive means for obtaining an LCA online as of May 15. (more…)

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