Employer: I got this contract to start work in 1 week. I have the perfect H-1B guy. Can you have the petition to me by tomorrow?

Attorney: No can do

Employer: Why? You always do that.

Attorney: That was before July 1. iCert will prevent me from doing that now.

Employer: iCert?

Attorney: Yes, the new LCA system. We file it, then wait 4-5 days. Then hopefully if the DOL can identify your FEIN, we may get an approval. If not, you submit FEIN documents to DOL, wait 4-5 days. DOL verifies it, then you need to file again. Then wait 4-5 days again…… This is a song that never ends, it goes on and on my friend

Employer: Stop singing, you have no tonal sense. So wait, wasn’t the purpose of AC-21 to increase competitiveness in the workplace with Employers being able to hire and get work done more quickly? Has Obama changed the century on us as well? Do we have a new AC-18?

Attorney: Ummm, the only thing that Obama wants fast is that health care reform. He said immigration has to wait. Besides the DOL is terrified that we are all trying to pull one over them. All of us trying to file fraudulent LCAs, our Government doubts everything we do

Employer: Thats bullshit! This is not fucking North Korea. This country was built on trust, where we elect our Government and have mutual trust. Besides illegal people don’t file H-1B. H-1Bs are professionals who will go back to their country if they don’t have a job. So this Computer program that DOL has, was it even beta tested?

Attorney: Calm down Sir. You just have to be patient. I quote from DOL’s stakeholder’s meeting on 07/31:”iCERT Program has only been operational for 3 months at this time, so bugs are to be expected at this point.” Also Sir, If we file an LCA, and it is denied, the notice will only go to you, not us. Can you kindly forward it to us?

Employer: I am not dealing with this. I’ll just outsource the work. Maybe the DOL should have hired H-1B professionals to design a better program.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

A Company is defined as its Federal Employment Identification Number (FEIN) for Immigration issues. When a Corporation seeks to hire a foreign national under a federal Immigration Law, it stands to reason that the Company should have a FEIN in order to hire that individual.

In a recent decision, In the Matter of Ornelas Inc, The Board of Immigration Appeals verified that the Company’s yellow page listing, or business licenses does not establish a bona fide Company.

Additionally, if two related companies have two different FEIN numbers, and the alien has worked for one entity, and the other entity is sponsoring the alien, the alien can use that experience and it will not be counted as experience from the same Company. Usually the alien cannot use the experience from the same company for labor certification, with the rationale being that the company can easily employ and American and train that person as well. But if say XY has two FEIn numbers, and the alien has worked for a division of Company X, and the petitioner is Y, then that expiration can be counted, even though the two companies are in the same location.

Thus if the two related companies have two different FEIN numbers, the Labor Dept treats them as two separate companies. Does not make sense, but then, the Dept of Labor never lives in a real world.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

You filed your EAD card over 90 days ago. You still did not get the card. You cannot work. Your employer is real mad and in this economic climate is going to fire you. You call USCIS line, and the person says, “thank you for calling, we will generate a report.” You get a letter in the mail saying that “we have generated a report. And then you wait….and wait…..

Although this story sounds very familiar to an Immigration Attorney, CIS claims that the delay beyond the 90 days happen to only 1.3 % of cases.

A new memo by Michael Aytes, Acting Director of USCIS, states that if your EAD card has been pending for more than 75 days, you can call the USCIS Service line at 1-800-375-5283, for a service call, and they will let the officer know of the call.

USCIS is also going to conduct sweeps to monitor and see that the EADs are issued within the 90 day period set by regulations. However that is not to say that on the 89th day you can get an RFE requesting more documents. RFEs stop the running of the clock.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

The Bush Government is solidly anti work when it comes to immigration. Yes, I admit that a worker must have the legal right to work. But employers know this too, and they would not take in immigrants if they found immigrants and United States Citizens ready to work. The anti Immigration forces make a huge deal about how immigrants are into crime, violence, etc. Yet Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s major focus is work place raids to eradicate illegal workers, not illegal criminals. Unless of course working was criminal!

But the same is true for legal workers who are not from this country. Everyday I hear stories from clients about how long the work permits are taking, and how they simply cannot get the CIS to issue them quickly. These workers are forced to quit and in many cases force to go back to their home country. Many of them are in fields like research or IT where there simply is not enough qualified immigrants to do the job.

Even though the economy is bad, we still need skilled workers. Laid off auto workers in Detroit will not be able to perform bio tech research. And if we continue to have this same policy, US will continue to slip behind.

I know that the economy and not immigration is the major focus of the Obama Government. But America as a nation was built by immigrants and will continue to prosper as long as we get hardworking immigrants in.

Just like a plant that has to work harder to survive in unaccustomed earth, human being flourish better if they have to fight in a foreign land with scant help.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

There is only one fixed law of Governments: When Government tries to fix things it ALWAYS fails. It will therefore fail in the whole bail out mess, no matter who is the President.

So last Friday DOL tried to fix its computer system, which was working OK, it messed things up. Apparently DOL knows about this problem and is trying to fix things. Among the problems we noticed:

1. Sponsorship questions are taking longer to generate
2. The link which employer click on that E mail to verify sponsorship is NOT working
3. When printing the ETA 9089, the job experience data field is empty, although you can view the data. This problem seems to have been fixed
4. Filed cases are getting a C designation (for Chicago) even though all PERM cases are handled by Atlanta and should get a A designation.

Hopefully DOL will not deny cases for failure of employers to reply to the sponsorship e mails, because the glitch is in their computers.

But then, it is the Government at work, so who knows.

See why they need to certify more computer professionals.

On another note: If the Employer has has submitted the registration application and has not heard anything from the DOL for weeks, they should write to:

BE-RFI.Atlanta@dol.gov

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details