Source: http://www.abilblog.com/us-blog/archives/02-2018
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 05:59:50+00:00

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​If you’ve been reading the Kuck | Baxter Immigration Partners Blog this past month, then you’ve seen that we’ve been conscientiously following the legal and political roller coaster concerning the status of DACA. You can catch up on our blog posts with DACA status updates here, here, and here.
The most recent twist and turn for DACA occurred on Monday, February 26, 2018.
The White House had requested that the Supreme Court immediately decide whether the Trump Administration could terminate the DACA program. If you recall, on September 5, 2017, the Trump Administration rescinded the DACA program, but allowed a six-month grace period for anyone with current DACA status trying to renew. After that deadline date of March 5, 2018, any DACA recipient whose DACA status had expired would no longer receive the temporary protection from deportation that DACA provided.
On February 26, 2018, the Supreme Court declined the White House’s request to decide on the DACA issue. This move from the Supreme Court was to be expected as currently no appeals court has ruled on the issue (the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has yet to rule on the Trump Administration’s appeal of the January 9, 2018 federal judge in California who issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on Trump’s September 5, 2017 rescission of the DACA program).
So, as it stands as of February 26, 2018, DACA is still in a precarious state of limbo—and the 700,000 young undocumented immigrants with DACA status who currently have temporary protection from deportation anxiously await a more final decision the issue.
For now, everyone with DACA should be submitting their renewals, regardless of their expiration date. This will ensure that when DACA ends, and it will eventually end, everyone has the longest possible term available. You can even renew your DACA if it expired at any time in the last twelve months.
The immigration attorneys and DACA attorneys at the immigration law firm of Kuck | Baxter are working around-the-clock to stay abreast of the constantly fluctuating and erratic changes to immigration law programs such as DACA that are currently on the table/chopping block.
Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to the confusing and ever-changing U.S. immigration laws and policies. Our immigration lawyers use their deep knowledge of the current status of immigration laws to best advise their client on their options with a degree of confidence that is as high as possible during this tumultuous time.
The U.S. Supreme Court has touched on immigration issues twice already this week, providing both good and bad news for non-citizens.
Yesterday, the Court decided not to hear the Trump administration’s appeal of two lower courts’ decisions concerning DACA. The lower courts have blocked the government from ending the DACA program on March 5. USCIS, the agency responsible for reviewing DACA applications and granting benefits under the program, has said it will not accept applications from individuals who have never had DACA before, but they are again accepting renewal applications.
When Trump initially rescinded the executive order creating the DACA program, USCIS would only accept renewal applications for DACA recipients whose deferred action and employment documents expired on or before March 5, 2018. Now that the lower courts have temporarily stopped Trump from ending DACA on that day, USCIS is accepting DACA renewal pursuant to the form instructions. The agency is still not accepting applications for advance parole, however.
Following a day of good news for DACA recipients, the Court ruled today that non-citizens detained pending deportation do not have a right to a bond hearing every six months, overturning a decision by the 9th Circuit requiring hearings that frequently. The initial case was brought by an immigrant from Mexico who had been living in the U.S. since childhood but who was detained for three years without a hearing after being placed in removal proceedings. The 9th Circuit had held that the government must provide bond hearings after an individual had been detained six months, and every six months after that. The case ended up in the Supreme Court after the Obama administration appealed the 9th Circuit ruling.
The conservative justices said the immigration laws do not limit the length of detention, but the liberal justices dissented, arguing that everyone has a right to liberty under the Declaration of Independence. This case does not affect the procedure in place for initial bond hearings, and the government stated that the later bond hearings can be permitted in certain circumstances.
Becoming a U.S. citizen is often thought of as an admirable act, something that our immigration and naturalization laws encourage qualified applicants to do. According to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), however, in at least one relatively common fact situation, our immigration laws actually discourage naturalization, by penalizing children of the naturalized parent. The BIA held in Matter of Zamora-Molina, 25 I&N Dec. 606 (BIA 2011), that an applicant for adjustment of status was ineligible for that relief essentially because of his mother’s naturalization, which the BIA believed led to less favorable treatment of his case under the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) than would have occurred if his mother had remained a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR). In Rodriguez Tovar v. Sessions, however, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently rejected Matter of Zamora-Molina and held that an otherwise CSPA-protected child did not lose that protection due to his LPR parent’s naturalization.
This author and Cyrus D. Mehta have frequently blogged in the past about the CSPA (see also here, here, and the tagged lists here and here), and I will not seek to describe here the entire statute and all of the provisions that it introduced into the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). However, some brief background regarding the portions of the CSPA involved in Zamora-Molina and Rodriguez Tovar is necessary in order to appreciate the Ninth Circuit’s decision.
Certain categories of visa petition apply to a “child” as defined in INA §101(b)(1), that is, “an unmarried person under twenty-one years of age” who meets one of several other criteria with respect to the petitioning parent. Under INA §203(h)(1) as added by the CSPA, the age of a beneficiary of a Family 2A preference petition filed for a child of an LPR under INA §203(a)(2)(A), or the age of the derivative beneficiary child under INA §203(d) of other types of petitions, is determined by taking the child’s age on the date when a visa number became available (as long as the child seeks to acquire LPR status within one year of that date), and subtracting the number of days during which the petition was pending with USCIS. Another way to look at it is that it is as though the child stops getting older when the petition is filed, and only starts again after the petition is approved, and then stops getting older once again when a visa number becomes available. If this adjusted age is under 21, then the child, as long as he or she is unmarried, can continue to be processed in the Family 2A preference (or as a derivative beneficiary), because he or she is still a “child” under the definition at INA §101(b)(1). The waiting time for an available visa number under the Family 2A preference for under-21-year-old children of LPRs is generally shorter than the waiting time for an available visa number under the Family 2B preference for over-21-year-old sons and daughters of LPRs, as shown in the State Department’s Visa Bulletin, so there is a significant advantage in that context to remaining a “child”.
​In the case of a petition . . . initially filed for an alien child’s classification as a family-sponsored immigrant under section 203(a)(2)(A), based on the child’s parent being lawfully admitted for permanent residence, if the petition is later converted, due to the naturalization of the parent, to a petition to classify the alien as an immediate relative . . . the determination described in paragraph (1) shall be made using the age of the alien on the date of the parent’s naturalization.
INA §201(f)(2). That is, when an LPR parent who has filed a petition for their child later naturalizes, the child’s age is frozen as of the date of the parent’s naturalization. But the question then arises, is the statute’s reference to “the age of the alien on the date of the parent’s naturalization” a reference to the child’s biological age, or to the child’s adjusted age under INA §203(h)(1)?
In Matter of Zamora-Molina, the BIA opted for the former answer, holding that the child’s biological age was the relevant age under INA §201(f)(2). Daniel Edgar Zamora-Molina had been biologically 22 when his mother naturalized, but it had previously taken more than two and a half years for the petition filed on his behalf to be approved. Thus, his CSPA-adjusted age at the time of naturalization was less than 20, under INA §203(h)(1), but his biological age at that time was over 21. The BIA held that Mr. Zamora-Molina could not adjust status as an immediate relative of his mother, but would need to proceed under the Family 1st Preference category for sons and daughters, over age 21, of U.S. citizens. The BIA also refused Mr. Zamora-Molina’s request to opt out of the conversion of his case to the Family 1st Preference under INA §204(k), which allows certain family preference beneficiaries to opt out of the effect of their parent’s naturalization, because the BIA held that §204(k) only allowed opting-out that resulted in becoming a beneficiary under the Family 2B category for sons and daughters over age 21 of LPRs. Since no visa numbers were available for Mr. Zamora-Molina’s priority date in either the Family 1st Preference category or the Family 2B preference category, given the length of the waiting lines under those categories, the BIA upheld the Immigration Judge’s decision that denied Mr. Zamora-Molina’s application for adjustment of status and instead granted him only permission to depart voluntarily rather than being removed.
Mr. Zamora-Molina argued to the BIA that it was “fundamentally unfair” to apply this law to him, because he would have been eligible for adjustment of status under the Family 2A preference category if his mother had not naturalized. In effect, he was being penalized for his mother’s naturalization. The BIA, however, interpreted this as a constitutional argument, which it held that it lacked authority to address.
In the case that came before the Ninth Circuit in Rodriguez Tovar v. Sessions, Margarito Rodriguez Tovar faced a similar fact pattern to Daniel Edgar Zamora-Molina. Mr. Rodriguez Tovar’s father had filed a petition for Margarito in April 2001 when Margarito was 17 or 18 years old, which was not approved until more than four years later in 2005, and had then naturalized in July 2006. At the time his father naturalized, Mr. Rodriguez Tovar’s biological age was 23, but his adjusted age was under 21 for purposes of his Family 2A petition according to the CSPA-adjusted age calculated under INA §203(h)(1), since subtracting more than four years from a biological age of 23 left him with an adjusted age of only 19. Moreover, had his father not become a citizen, Mr. Rodriguez Tovar would have become eligible for a visa number in the Family 2A category less than a year later, in July 2007, when his CSPA-adjusted age was still only 20.
Rodriguez Tovar, slip op. at 9.
The Ninth Circuit rejected the BIA’s interpretation of the statute which had led to this “irrational” result. Rodriguez Tovar, slip op. at 12. Looking at the statute as a whole, the Ninth Circuit held that the reference to “the age of the alien on the date of the parent’s naturalization” in INA §201(f)(2) was unambiguously a reference to the age as calculated under INA §203(h)(1), that is, the CSPA-adjusted age. Although §203(h)(1) and §201(f)(2) do not explicitly cross-reference one another, the Ninth Circuit held, those two provisions are tied together by INA §203(a)(2)(A), which each of them does reference, and the three provisions together “form a cohesive whole.” Rodriguez Tovar, slip op. at 14-15. Moreover, the conversion provisions of the statute and regulations, and the absence of an opt-out under INA §204(k) for CSPA-protected F2A beneficiaries to remain in the F2A category, both make more sense if read with the background understanding that Congress expected CSPA-protected F2A petitions to convert to immediate relative cases upon the petitioner’s naturalization.
Our interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1151(f)(2) [INA §201(f)(2)] makes sense within the context of the whole CSPA. Anyone who is treated as a minor child of a lawful permanent resident for purposes of an F2A petition is treated as a minor child of a citizen when the parent naturalizes, and no one is penalized just because his parent became a citizen. The government’s interpretation leads to the absurd result that Rodriguez Tovar’s father’s naturalization causes the deportation of his son, who is then compelled to wait for decades in a foreign land before he can return—despite the fact that had his father simply remained an LPR, Rodriguez Tovar would have been eligible for a visa within a year. That can hardly have been Congress’s intent.
“[I]nterpretations of a statute which would produce absurd results are to be avoided if alternative interpretations consistent with the legislative purpose are available.” Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 575 (1982). Accordingly, we conclude “that Congress had a clear intent on the question at issue,” The Wilderness Soc’y, 353 F.3d at 1059: children of LPRs may take advantage of the age calculation formula in 8 U.S.C. § 1153(h)(1) [INA §203(h)(1)] for purposes of converting to immediate relative status under § 1151(f)(2) [INA §201(f)(2)] when their parents naturalize.
Rodriguez Tovar, slip op. at 21.
Hopefully, the Ninth Circuit’s compelling arguments may convince other Courts of Appeals, and ultimately perhaps even the BIA or, if the issue is brought there, the Supreme Court. In the meantime, only those who reside within the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit (that is, California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands), and perhaps others whose cases are being processed there such as at the California Service Center, are likely to be able to take advantage of Rodriguez Tovar without going to federal court themselves, and even in those cases there will be some uncertainty regarding the precise conditions under which USCIS will be willing to apply Rodriguez Tovar until we see how they behave in practice. In cases in which the Zamora-Molina / Rodriguez Tovar issue arises, however, applicants for adjustment of status and their attorneys should consider whether litigation in federal court is an appropriate option. Other Article III judges, like the Ninth Circuit panel in Rodriguez Tovar, may be less willing than the BIA to read the CSPA to produce the absurd result of penalizing children for the naturalization of their LPR parents.
Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that ICE is actively targeting employers and companies in California. Now is the time to assure that your employee records are in compliance with federal law and California state law or you could possibly face severe fines and penalties.
The attorneys at Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP can provide group training and perform your company’s self-audits to assure compliance with federal law. Our attorneys can also advise you on California’s AB 450 to assure that you are not violating state law while replying to notice of inspections from ICE.
LOS ANGELES – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation officers and special agents arrested 212 individuals for violating federal immigration laws and served 122 notices of inspection (NOIs) to businesses in the Los Angeles area.
A notice of inspection alerts business owners that ICE is going to audit their hiring records to determine whether or not they are in compliance with the law. If the businesses are found to not be in compliance with the law, they will face civil fines and potential criminal prosecution. Any potential criminal charges or other penalties will be coordinated with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Under federal law, employers are required to verify the identity and employment eligibility of all individuals they hire, and to document that information using the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9. A notice of inspection alerts business owners that ICE is going to audit their hiring records to determine whether or not they are in compliance with the law. Employers are required to produce their company’s I-9s within three business days, after which ICE will conduct an inspection for compliance. If employers are not in compliance with the law, an I-9 inspection of their business will likely result in civil fines and could lay the groundwork for criminal prosecution, if they are knowingly violating the law.
In October 2017, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Immigrant Worker Protection Act (AB 450) into law, which requires (among other things) that employers notify their employee workforce of any government Form I-9 inspections within 72 hours or face potential penalties and fines. The template posting notice is described in some detail below, and can be downloaded here in English or here in Spanish.
This new law puts California employers in a tough situation, as they are now required to comply with California law, and provide notice on any Form I-9 inspections or audit performed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). California employers face harsh penalties for failure to provide this notice. Numerous other requirements in the Immigrant Worker Protection Act impact California employers. They are designed to protect an estimated three million plus undocumented California employees, including new regulations relating to Form I-9 inspection practices, and policies for access to an employer’s place of business, employment records, and reverification of work authorization for current employees.
​Here on the Kuck | Baxter Immigration Partners Blog, we have been posting timely blogs to keep our readers informed of the precarious status of DACA. Including this instant blog, we have now published three blogs about DACA’s current status.
During a targeted five day period at the beginning of February, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Agents served 122 Notices of Inspection (NOIs) to businesses in the greater Los Angeles area. This followed the highly publicized serving of NOIs on 77 businesses in Northern California in January. It is clear that companies in California are operating in a climate of increased and stricter enforcement. While the increased level of scrutiny of Corporate Immigration Compliance and Enforcement is a nationwide priority for the Trump Administration, particular attention and resources are being focused on California following the passage of the Immigrant Worker Protection Act (AB 450) which was signed into law in October of 2017 by Governor Jerry Brown and which took effect on January 1, 2018. AB 450 provides protections for employees in California. Acting Director of ICE, Thomas D Homan has issued a chilling warning to California to “hang on tight” as he threatened a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities.
Under Federal Law, employers are required to verify the identity and employment eligibility of all individuals they hire using the Form I-9, The Employment Eligibility Verification Form. Form I-9 must be timely and properly completed and retained for a proscribed period of time and made available to ICE if requested. While the Form I-9 appears to be simple and straight forward, in reality, proper completion can be quite tricky and simple mistakes can result in substantial civil fines and criminal liability.
NOIs alerts a company that ICE is going to audit their I-9s and hiring records to determine if they are in compliance with the law. Employers are required to produce their I-9s within three business days, after which ICE will review the forms and payroll records to determine compliance. If it is found that the company is in violation of the law, they can face civil fines and potential criminal prosecution.
Since the adoption of the Form I-9 as part of IRCA in 1986, the use of the I-9 audit to address illegal immigration has come in and out of favor depending on the enforcement strategy and priorities of the current administration. The Bush Administration approach had been high profile raids. The Obama Administrations initial strategy for stemming illegal immigration was focused on I-9 audits rather than raids but in the last years backed off and focused on removing actual criminals not workers.
The Trump Administration is doing it all. “HSI is using a three-prong approach to conduct worksite enforcement, compliance through I-9 inspection and civil fines, enforcement through the criminal arrest of employers and administrative arrest of unauthorized workers and outreach thorough the ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE ) program. In all of FY2008, ICE issued only 503 notices in contrast to the 3127 NOIs issued in FY2013. IN FY2017 ICE conducted 1,360 I-9 audits and made 139 criminal arrests and 172 administrative arrests.
The emphasis now is not only on subjecting companies to civil fines, but ICE in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice is pursing Employers for “knowingly hiring” employees that are not authorized to work in the US. The term “knowingly” includes not only actual knowledge but also “constructive knowledge” which is knowledge that may fairly be inferred through notice of certain facts and circumstances which would lead a person, through the exercise of reasonable care, to know about a certain condition.
All Employers, especially those in “sanctuary“ states such as California need to be prepared for a visit from HSI and ICE.
Here are five pro-active steps Employers can take to ensure they are prepared for the increased scrutiny by ICE.
Organize your Forms I-9. Never keep I-9’s with personnel files. Organize in 3 categories. I-9’s for current employees, I-9’s for employees with expiration dates that require reverification, I-9’s for terminated employees that require purging/destruction at the appropriate time.
Establish an internal training program, with annual updates on how to manage completion of Form I-9, retention and updating of Form I-9, how to detect fraudulent use of documents in the I-9 process. Conduct an Internal Form I-9 Audit right away.Internal I-9 audits can be done by an immigration lawyer, an external auditing agency or a trained employee not otherwise involved in the I-9 process. Arrange for annual I-9 audits.
Figure out your obligations under Immigrant Worker Protection Act impact California (AB-450) so that you are prepared in the event of an audit. This new law puts California employers in a tough situation, as they are now required to comply with California law, and provide notice on any Form I-9 inspections or audit performed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). California employers face harsh penalties for failure to provide this notice. See Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP’s blog entry from February 15, 2018 for further details on the impact of AB-450.
Now is the time to get ready. Immigration is a key issue for Trump and his administration. Enforcement actions are on the rise and will not slow down anytime soon, especially for “sanctuary” cities and states.
Therefore, it has become critical to plan ahead and understand the rules regarding the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA).
The annual H-1B quota is perennially oversubscribed. In fact, in the first week that new H-1B petitions are allowed each year, the number of H-1B petitions received is more than twice the number that could be approved under the quota for the entire year. This less than 50 percent chance has led some employers to question whether they should even “play the lottery.” The answer is “yes,” and here’s why.
Talent Acquisition – Currently employers are struggling to meet organizational needs for key professionals, particularly those employed in STEM fields. The economy shows little sign of slowing down. Filing H-1B petitions for key candidates now may be the only way to fill critical gaps in your workforce.
Talent Retention – If your organization employs an F-1 student pursuant to Optional Practical Training, that student’s work authorization is time-limited. You must act to retain the student within your organization, or you may lose him or her to a competitor who filed an H-1B petition in an effort to lure the student away. Further, F-1 students in STEM fields may have as many as three bites at the H-1B apple without experiencing a gap in work authorization. Trying each year increases the chance of ultimate success.
Little or Nothing to Lose – The government filing fees for an H-1B petition are not insignificant, but it’s all worth it if the petition is selected in the H-1B lottery. And if the petition is not selected, the government returns the filing fees. Ultimately the cost on rejected H-1B petition is just the cost of case preparation and filing.
Capitalize on Investment – If your company employs an F-1 student, the company has likely invested significant resources in his or her training and grooming for advancement within the organization. Compared to the cost of turnover and loss of the investment to date, the risk of losing out on an H-1B number is peanuts.
I could offer a number of clichés here. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You win some, you lose some. But the bottom line is that your organization will likely lose more by not “playing the lottery” than by moving forward with a strong, well-prepared petition. After all, if possibly not getting an H-1B number is bad, definitely not getting one – which happens if you don’t file – is worse.
Because the one-week window for filing new H-1B petitions is approaching in the first week of April, employers should act now to identify all H-1B candidates and contact their Foster immigration attorney to get started with case preparation. Potential H-1B candidates include F-1 students, L-1B employees, and L-2, H-4, and E spouses currently employed based on EAD work authorization.
Why didn’t President Obama create a path to citizenship for DACA recipients?
Is it true that many undocumented citizens can receive public benefits for free?
1) Family-based petitions. This means that a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident parent, spouse, adult child, or sibling files a “petition” for you. Depending on your country of citizenship and on the category that you fall into, the wait will be anywhere from 1 – approximately 30 years before you can use that petition to take the next step – applying to become a Permanent Resident. That usually works for people living outside the U.S., but for those who have been here, it may not be possible if they entered the U.S. illegally, even if they were minor children when they did so.
2) Employment-based petitions. A U.S. employer can similarly sponsor you, but generally only if you are in a profession requiring an advanced degree or unique skills (ex: doctors, scientists, corporate executives, world-class athletes, coaches of Olympic sports teams, etc.). Even then, the potential employer must generally obtain a labor certification to prove that they made good-faith efforts to hire a U.S. citizen for the position, but no qualified applicants applied.
Note: The current Administration has actively sought to eliminate or dramatically limit Options #1 and #3. The new term being used in the attempted re-branding of Option #1 (family-based immigration), which has been the basic principle of U.S. immigration law for over a century, is the pejorative term “chain migration”. If those two options are in fact eliminated or curtailed, legal immigration to the U.S. will be significantly reduced.
The KEY POINT to all of the above: If you do not qualify for one of these 3 options, then there is no “line” to get into to legally become a Permanent Resident and eventually a U.S. citizen. So, if you are not fortunate enough to have, say, a U.S. citizen spouse, parent, or child (over the age of 21) or for example, a Ph.D. in physics, you very likely can never become a citizen of the United States.
Many people ask why President Obama, when he established DACA in 2012, did not just create a path to citizenship for these young people at that time. The answer: earlier that year, Congress had for the 11th year in a row failed to pass the Dream Act, which would have done exactly that. The President acting through his authority as head of the Executive Branch cannot create a path to Lawful Permanent Residency (and eventual US citizenship). Only a law, passed by Congress and then signed by the President, can accomplish that. So President Obama on June 15, 2012 created the more limited DACA program through Executive Action – which is why President Trump, as the new President, was able to end the program, also without an act of Congress, last fall.
Finally, there is a common misconception that undocumented immigrants can receive many public benefits, for free. In reality, only a U.S. citizen or a Lawful Permanent Resident (green card holder) can receive almost all types of public benefit – including Medicaid, Medicare, SSI disability, Social Security payments for seniors, TANF, and food stamps. The irony: most undocumented immigrants work under made-up Social Security numbers and so receive a paycheck from which Social Security, federal income taxes, and state income taxes are withheld, and of course they pay the same local sales and property taxes as anyone else through retail purchases, pass-through costs of apartment leases, etc. Same of course goes for the approximately 800,000 current DACA recipients, who are authorized to legally work in the U.S. But very few of those employees, despite paying in to the system, will ever receive those public benefits listed above, that are paid for by the money withheld from their paychecks. So they are propping up our federal and state government entitlement programs because they pay in but won’t ever take out.
4) Assistance from police if they are the victim of a crime and call for help. To their credit, the vast majority of Colorado Springs law enforcement officers take their duty to protect all people seriously. Chief Carey of the Colorado Springs Police Department and Sheriff Elder of the El Paso County Sheriff have made clear that their officers can’t do their most important job – keeping us safe by getting dangerous criminals off our streets – if a whole class of people (undocumented immigrants) is afraid to call 911 to report crimes that they witness or are victim to.
And that’s it. Those, to the best of my knowledge, are the only public benefits that an undocumented immigrant can receive in just about any part of the United States. As someone who works in a small satellite office in Colorado Springs and helps many low-income immigrant families per year, know that when I see the precarious economic situation of many of these families, I’d help them access other benefits if they could access them. But they simply can’t. Now, children of undocumented parents, born in the U.S., are U.S. citizens under the 14th Amendment As such, those children can qualify for the same public benefits as any other U.S. citizen, if they qualify through economic need or disability. But their parents or undocumented siblings cannot.
Despite the fact that the PERM regulations took effect on March 28, 2005, almost 13 years ago, PERM practitioners continue to struggle with the Department of Labor (DOL) regarding what must be listed in PERM advertisements. Issues surrounding this ongoing battle were discussed in my blogs here, here, here and here. As they say, the struggle is real!
An employer has to conduct a good faith recruitment of the labor market in order to obtain labor certification for a foreign national employee. When a DOL Certifying Officer (CO) chooses to deny a PERM application due to lack of information in the advertisements, there are a few typical sources of authority that could be cited to justify that denial. 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.” Based on this authority, a CO could find that an employer failed to inform US workers of conditions of employment that might have made the position more attractive to them, such as a work from home benefit. Under 20 C.F.R. §656.24(b)(2), the CO must make a determination as to whether there “is in the United States a worker who is able, willing, qualified and available for and at the place of the job opportunity.” Based on this authority, the CO can hold that this decision is impossible to make since the employer failed to provide US workers with a sufficient understanding of the job opportunity thus rendering them incapable of making an informed decision as to whether they would qualify for the offered position. Accordingly, the CO cannot make a determination as to whether or not qualified US workers exist. Another favorite source of authority is 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 will cite this regulation to make the point that, since the employer neglected to sufficiently inform US workers about the job opportunity, then it was clearly not open to all US workers.
Most recently, in Matter of Unicolor, Inc. 2013-PER-00065 (Jan. 26, 2018) the Employer advertised for a permanent position classified under the occupational title of “Sales Representative, Wholesale and Manufacture.” The PERM was audited. The CO then denied the PERM under 20 C.F.R. §§656.24(b)(2)(ii) and 656.10(c)(8) and (9), finding that because the Employer failed to include “must be able to read, write, and speak the Korean language” in its Sunday print advertisements and in its job order, the Employer had not provided U.S. applicants with a sufficient understanding of the job opportunity to make an informed decision as to whether they would qualify for the position. The Employer’s newspaper advertisements had simply stated, “Sales Representative. Apply by mail only to Unicolors, Inc.” In its request for reconsideration the Employer argued that the Preamble to the Final Rule of 20 C.F.R. Parts 655 and 656 gives the Employer the flexibility to draft appropriate advertisements that comply and that lengthy, detailed advertisements are not required by the regulation. The Employer argued that its advertisements sufficiently apprised the potentially qualified applicants of the job. The case was appealed to the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA).
In describing its responsibility in adjudicating the appeal, BALCA cited a prior case which states, “When the CO relies on §656.10(c)(8) as a basis for denying an application due to deficiencies in an employer’s recruitment advertising, the Board must determine whether any discrepancies between the job requirements listed in the Form 9089 and the Employer’s recruitment advertisements ‘so misinformed potential job applicants about the [position] that this aspect of recruitment undermines the attestation that the job opportunity is clearly open to any U.S. worker.’” Enterprise Software Solutions, Inc., 2012-PER-02118 (Nov. 16, 2016) (citing Cosmos Foundation, Inc., 2012-PER-01637, slip op. at 7 (Aug. 4, 2016)).
BALCA found that its recent panels, in applying this §656.10(c)(8) analysis, reversed PERM denials when the Employer’s advertisements merely omitted information. BALCA referred to Cosmos Foundation, Inc., where the Employer advertised for the position of Social Studies Department Chair asking simply for 24 months of experience. On the PERM application, the Employer indicated that it would accept 24 months experience in the offered position or as a “Teacher in Social Studies [or any subfield of social sciences] at the middle or high school levels.” The CO reasoned that the Employer had not provided U.S. workers with a sufficient understanding of the job opportunity to make an informed decision as to whether they would qualify for the position. However, BALCA pointed out that the Employer’s advertisements did not actually misinform US workers about the job opportunity or deter qualified candidates from applying. A US worker with relevant teaching experience would still apply for the position whether or not that worker had experience as a Social Studies Department Chair or as a “Teacher in Social Studies [or any subfield of social sciences] at the middle or high school levels.” BALCA found that the Employer’s omission of the acceptable alternate job experience in its advertisements did not “chill” potentially qualified candidates’ interest in the job opportunity.
BALCA also referred to DNG Technologies, Inc. 2012-PER-01647 (Feb. 25, 2016) where the CO denied the PERM application finding that the Employer’s advertisement on its website failed to apprise interested applicants of the geographic area of employment. The CO argued that §656.10(c)(8) requires website advertisements to comply with the criteria set forth in §656.17(f), including §656.17(f)(4), which mandates that advertisements must “[i]indicate the geographic area of employment with enough specificity to apprise applicants of any travel requirements and where applicants will likely have to reside to perform the job opportunity.” But BALCA pointed out that the Board has ruled §656.17(f) applies only to advertisements placed in newspapers of general circulation or professional journals. Symantec Corp., 2011-PER-1856 (July 30, 2014) (en banc) (which I previously blogged about here). Because §656.17(f)(4) does not govern the additional forms of professional recruitment, it does not necessarily follow that omitting the area of geographic employment from an employer’s website advertisement establishes that the job was not clearly open to US workers. BALCA stated that the relevant inquiry under §656.10(c)(8) is whether the Employer’s website advertisement so misinformed, or so failed to inform, potential applicants about the job opportunity that the recruitment did not support the Employer’s attestation that the job opportunity was clearly open to any US worker. BALCA found that interested applicants were not misinformed about the location of the offered position, they simply were not informed about the geographic area of employment and although a statement of the location of the employment might have been useful information for job seekers, its omission did not support a determination that the job opportunity was not clearly open to US workers.
Based on these two cases, BALCA found that the Employer in Unicolors merely omitted the information that the qualified candidate must be able to read, write, and speak the Korean language. The Employer, while it could have been more specific in its advertisements, did not overstate or mischaracterize the job requirements and the regulations do not require that the Employer enumerate every job requirement in its advertisements. Killing any potential argument that Korean speakers who were out there just dying for a job where they could utilize their Korean were deterred from applying for the offered position simply because the Employer failed to inform them that applicants for the Sales Representative position needed to be fluent in Korean, BALCA pointed out that the regulations do not require that employers craft their advertisements to foreclose all possible reasons why a qualified applicant may not apply for a certain job. A US worker with the ability to read, write and speak Korean would still apply for the job if they were interested in a position as a Sales Representative!
It can become truly exhausting to always prepare PERM applications defensively; to always try to stay one step ahead of the DOL and to imagine new reasons for denial. It is therefore quite encouraging to read these types of BALCA decisions which reward employers for their good faith recruitment and where the US worker is not painted as so easily “deterred’, “confused” and “adversely affected.” Having said that, PERM practitioners know well that in trying to ensure a smooth PERM process, the best course of action is to include as much relevant information in the advertisements as possible and to endeavor to keep advertisements identical across the board. But for the times when that is not the case, these decisions provide some hope.

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