Washington D.C. Employment Law Update : Washington D.C. Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Littler Mendelson Law Firm : Virginia, Tyson's Corner

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a proposed rule designed to decrease administrative and employer costs associated with the H-1B petition process. Under the proposed rule, employers would electronically register with USCIS during an enrollment period of at least two weeks in March of each year, prior to the April 1 filing period start date. Participating employers would file a single registration for each prospective H-1B worker they seek to hire (i.e., multiple prospective H-1B workers could not be listed on a single registration). Unlike current requirements, procuring a Labor Condition Application (LCA) prior to filing a petition would not be required.  Continue reading this entry at Littler's Global Immigration Counsel.

Photo credit: David Franklin

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USCIS has announced that it is beta testing a web-based tool – Validation Instrument for Business Enterprises (VIBE) – designed to enhance the agency’s adjudications of certain employment-based immigration petitions by using commercially available data to validate basic information about companies or organizations petitioning to employ a foreign worker.  Continue reading this entry at Littler's Global Immigration Counsel.

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The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) Associate Director for Service Center Operations has issued a detailed memo (pdf) regarding how to determine, when evaluating H-1B visa petitions, whether an employer-employee relationship exists and will continue to exist. The memo, which is addressed to USCIS Service Center Directors, discusses:

• scenarios that do and do not represent a valid employer-employee relationship;
• documentation to establish the employer-employee relationship;
• requests for evidence to establish the employer-employee relationship; and
• regulatory compliance.

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At a symposium in Washington, D.C., US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that an additional 1,000 Notices of Inspection (NOI) will be issued. This is a significant move and reveals the administration's intent to increase enforcement actions against employers that engage in the unlawful hiring of undocumented workers. This year alone, Immigration Customs and Enforcement has issued 1,044 NOIs, which is three times as many NOIs than were issued in 2008. Adding another 1,000 NOIs drastically increases this statistic. To further illustrate the administration's aggressive pursuit of employers, Notices of Fines totaling $24 million have been issued in 2009, compared with $2.4 million in 2008. Also, during 2009, 100 companies and individuals have been barred from doing business with the federal government, whereas only one company was barred last year.  Continue reading at Littler's Global Immigration Counsel blog.

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On Friday the Senate confirmed the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for overseeing lawful immigration to this country. In addition to establishing immigration-related policies and services, the USCIS adjudicates the petitions and applications of potential immigrants and guest workers.

President Obama announced his nomination of Cuban-born Mayorkas in April. In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination. In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Mayorkas listed as one of his first priorities if confirmed as USCIS Director: “ . . to strive to improve the Agency's fraud prevention and detection operations, increase collaboration with U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other law enforcement agencies to respond to fraud, and improve the efficiency and accuracy of the E-Verify system.”

Mayorkas is currently a litigation partner in a private law firm. Prior to entering private practice, Mayorkas served as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.  At the age of 39, Mayorkas became the youngest U.S. Attorney in the country.  Mayorkas earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley in 1981, and his law degree from Loyola University in 1985.
 

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President Obama has announced his intent to nominate Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as the director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The USCIS is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for overseeing lawful immigration to this country. To that end, the USCIS adjudicates, among other things, the petitions and applications of potential immigrants and guest workers.

Born in Cuba, Mayorkas is currently a litigation partner in a private law firm. Prior to entering private practice, Mayorkas served as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, where – at the age of 39 – he began as the youngest U.S. Attorney in the country. In this position, Mayorkas prosecuted a wide variety of cases, including those involving public corruption, investment fraud, civil rights violations, high-tech and computer-related crime, organized crime, environmental crime, and international money laundering. In addition, the National Law Journal has named Mayorkas as one of the "50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America."

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On April 20, 2009, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) provided its second update regarding the H-1B cap count. USCIS has received approximately 44,000 H-1B petitions subject to the regular cap of 65,000. This represents only 1,000 additional filings since April 13th and means that new H-1B petitions may still be filed.  Continue reading at Littler's Global Immigration Counsel blog.

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The following is a summary of the legislative and regulatory news for the week of April 5, 2009:

Agency Changes

President Obama has named Jane Oates as his nominee for assistant secretary of the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA).

Jordan Barab has been appointed as both deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

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Yesterday the immigration community was surprised to learn that while the 20,000 H-1B numbers set aside for the advanced U.S. degree cap were nearly all accounted for, only two-thirds of the 65,000 regular H-1B cap numbers were used up. This means that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) continues to accept applications for initial H-1B status more than a week after the H-1B filing season opened up on April 1st. This is in stark contrast to the 133,000 H-1B petitions received within the first two days of filing last year.  Continue reading on Littler's Global Immigration Counsel blog.

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