Source: http://www.abilblog.com/us-blog/category/administrative%20procedure%20act
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 06:04:46+00:00

Document:
As we have blogged about extensively in the past, President Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order No. 13788 has had the most negative impact on the H-1B visa program. Following this pattern, the recent trend by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) heading into the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 H-1B Cap filing season has been to rely on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) to arbitrarily deny H-1B visa petitions for Information Technology (IT) positions, such as computer systems analysts. In RFEs and denial decisions, USCIS states that they recognize the OOH as an “authoritative source on the duties and educational requirements” of a variety of occupations, and has used the OOH’s general statements on such requirements to deny H-1B petitions for failing to establish that a bachelor’s degree in a specific specialty is the normal minimum requirement for entry into the position, despite statements in the OOH to the contrary. In addition, USCIS recently put out a statement entitled Combatting Fraud and Abuse in the H-1B Visa Programexpressing an intent to continue to target H-1B dependent employers in the IT industry who assign H-1B workers at client sites.
8 CFR § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A) (emphasis added).
Petitioners and their attorneys should closely review the OOH themselves rather than rely on the few sections USCIS provides in its denial. If attorneys do this, they will realize that USCIS chooses to leave out an important section of the educational requirements that “[m]ost computer systems analysts have a bachelor’s degree in a computer-related field.” (emphasis added). USCIS ignores this language in order to support its faulty determination that a bachelor’s degree in a specific specialty, or its equivalent, is not normally the minimum requirement for the position and that the degree requirement is not common to the industry under the first and second criteria of 8 CFR §214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A). However, where the regulation uses the words “normally” and “common” it would be erroneous to determine that a proffered position is not a specialty occupation merely because not all employers require a bachelor’s degree. If most employers require a bachelor’s degree, this should be sufficient to meet the statutory definition of a specialty occupation. If a petitioner receives a denial of an H-1B petition based on this same reasoning, which is contrary to the law, mounting a challenge in federal court may be worth considering. Petitioners are gun shy about suing the government in federal court out of fear that the government may retaliate against them on other cases. That may not be necessarily so as one has anecdotally heard that the USCIS is terrified of litigation as it creates more work and could also result in a precedent that may be unfavorable for the government’s position in future cases. This is not surprising, however, given the repeated failure of USCIS to appropriately interpret the law in accordance with the INA. In reality, due to the quota system on which USCIS operates, the vast majority of USCIS officials do not care and do not have time to retaliate against litigious petitioners. Indeed, USCIS may pay more attention to cases that may potentially be litigated and give the benefit of doubt to the petitioner over a close call.
Recently, attorney Michael E. Piston, a fearless litigator, on the behalf of petitioner Delta Information Systems, bypassed the AAO and filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California with this argument pursuant to §10b of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 702. In the complaint, plaintiffs Delta Information Systems, Inc. (Delta) and Srinivasa Narasimhalu allege that the Director of the California Service Center (CSC) of the USCIS erred in denying Delta’s Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker as a temporary worker in a specialty occupation (H-1B) on behalf of Mr. Narasimhalu and in denying Mr. Narasimhalu’s application to extend his H-1B nonimmigrant status in the United States. Plaintiffs ask the court to hold unlawful and set aside these decisions of the CSC Director that were arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law. Mr. Narasimhalu is a native of India who Delta lawfully employed as a computer professional from November 1, 2011 to February 27, 2018 with the authorization of USCIS. His education and experience has been evaluated as the equivalent of a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems.
The plaintiffs first argue that USCIS erroneously determined that no employer-employee relationship existed between Delta and Mr. Narasimhalu. In fact, Mr. Narasimhalu has been an employee of Delta, with USCIS authorization, for over six years, and it is undisputed that the sole right to control Mr. Narasimhalu’s work activities belongs to Delta. This ground is frequently invoked by the USCIS when the H-1B worker is placed at a third party site. In its decision, USCIS concedes that for purposes of H-1B visa classification, the terms “employer,” “employed,” “employment,” or “employer-employee relationship” are undefined. The complaint notes that because these terms are undefined by the agency, it is necessary to look to the common law definition. Citing to Clackamas Gastroenterology Assocs., P.C. v. Wells, 538 U.S. 440 (2003) and Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318, 323 (1992), the complaint explains that in determining whether one is an employee, the consideration is the hiring party’s right to control. Citing to Chin v. United States, 57 F.3d 722, 725 (9th Cir. 1995), the complaint argues that the decision was not in accordance with the law to the extent that it was premised upon the assertion that Delta had to actually direct or control the work of Mr. Narasimhalu rather than merely having the right to control his work. In fact, USCIS in its decision observes that a “United States employer” is defined as one who “has an employer-employee relationship with respect to employees under this part, as indicated by the fact that it may hire, pay, fire, supervise, or otherwise control the work of any such employee …” (emphasis added). Consistent with Clackamas, Darden, and Chin, the fact that an employer “may” control the work of an employee, instead of “must,” proves that it is only the right to control rather than the actual exercise of the right that is determinative of an employer-employee relationship. In Mr. Narasimhalu’s case, his contract with Delta expressly provides that Delta has the complete right to control his work. Additionally, the entity controlling the location where Mr. Narasimhalu will perform his work, Nabco Entrances, Inc., disaffirms having any right to control Mr. Narasimhalu’s work and fully corroborates that Delta has the complete right to control Mr. Narasimhalu’s work and will control his work. Thus, it was arbitrary and capricious to decide that Delta lacks an employer-employee relationship with Mr. Narasimhalu.
The plaintiffs also argue that USCIS erred in concluding that the job of computer systems analyst was not a specialty occupation where it is undisputed that most computer systems analysts have a bachelor’s degree in a computer related field. As a reminder, 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A)(1) provides that if a baccalaureate or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum requirement for entry into the particular position, then that position qualifies as a specialty occupation. Citing to Next Generation Tech., Inc. v. Johnson, No. 15 cv 5663 (DF), 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165531, at *30-31 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 29, 2017), the complaint emphasizes that if “most” computer systems analysts have a bachelor’s degree in the appropriate field, as is provided in the OOH, then it follows that the degree is “normally” required for the position, and thus, the position qualifies as a specialty occupation. Furthermore, in its decision, USCIS pointed out, as a basis for its denial, that “computer system[s] analysts have degrees in a wide range of unrelated degrees including computer related degrees, business degrees and liberal arts degrees.” Citing to (Redacted Decision) 2012 WL 4713226 (AAO February 08, 2012), the complaint notes that consistent with the NextGeneration Tech reasoning, the AAO has explained in at least 2,415 unpublished decisions that “USCIS regularly approves H-1B petitions for qualified aliens who are to be employed as engineers, computer scientists, certified public accountants, college professors, and other such occupations.” For computer scientists, for example, the OOH provides that “[m]ost computer and information research scientists need a master’s degree in computer science or a related subject, such as computer engineering.” (emphasis added). This illustrates that, provided the specialties are closely related, a minimum of a bachelor’s degree or higher in more than one specialty satisfies the “degree in the specific specialty” requirement of INA § 214(i)(1)(8). In reversing the CSC’s denial of a petition, a U.S. District Court said that the “premise that the title of a field of study controls ignores the realities of the statutory language involved and the obvious intent behind them. The knowledge and not the title of the degree is what is important. Diplomas rarely come bearing occupation-specific majors.” Residential Fin. Corp. v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 839 F. Supp. 2d 985, 996 (S.D. Ohio 2012). The complaint makes clear that both USCIS and the courts have repeatedly held that where most employers in an occupation require a bachelor’s degree in a narrow range of majors, or a related major, or its equivalent, it is a specialty occupation. Since it is undisputed that most computer systems analysts hold degrees in a computer related area, USCIS did not act in accordance with the law in deciding the position not to be a specialty occupation.
Attorneys who also face this obstacle should similarly challenge an H-1B denial directly in federal court in order to avoid wasting any time. Under Darby v. Cisneros, 509 U.S. 137 (1993) it is permissible to bypass the AAO and challenge the denial in federal court where exhaustion of administrative remedies is not required by law. Some examples of recent successful litigation include Next Generation Tech., Inc. v. Johnson, No. 15 cv 5663 (DF), 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165531 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 29, 2017) and Raj & Co. v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 85 F. Supp. 3d 1241 (2015). In Next Generation Tech., the court failed to see a rational connection between the evidence in the OOH stating that “most computer programmers have a bachelor’s degree” and USCIS’s conclusion that “computer programmers are not normally required to have a bachelor’s degree.” 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165531 at *20-21.The Court found that USCIS did not present a fair reading of the OOH and failed to satisfactorily explain its determination that a computer programmer was not a specialty occupation. Id. at *21-22. In Raj & Co., the Court found that USCIS abused its discretion in determining that a position for a market research analyst did not come within the first criterion of the regulation of a specialty occupation. 85 F. Supp. 3d at 1246. The Court reasoned that USCIS impermissibly narrowed the plain language of the statute when it concluded that a bachelor’s degree being typical did not require the degree as a minimum for entry into the occupation. Id. at 1247. Even if the USCIS invokes the lack of an employer-employee relationship as a ground for denial when an H-1B worker is assigned to a client site, one should point out that the goal of USCIS’s latest policy memo concerning third party relationships is to exercise more scrutiny on contractual arrangements with third parties rather than deny the legitimacy of such an arrangement. The USCIS in its policy memo acknowledges that such arrangements may be a legitimate and frequently used business model under the H-1B visa program. These cases show that it is unjustified to deny highly qualified foreigners the opportunity to work in specialty occupations in the United States based on a narrowed reading of the OOH. Hopefully, with continued pushback, the federal courts will put an end to such arbitrary denials.
Another reason to sue is that advocacy is no longer effective with the Trump administration. Although there are good policy arguments to approve legitimate H-1B visa petitions in a full employment economy as it makes U.S. employers more competitive, resulting in further jobs, they make no difference if high level immigration officials are driven by another agenda based on white nationalism and xenophobia. The same officials who spend their time conjuring up restrictive policies for purposes of denying H-1B petitions will need to focus their efforts in defending litigation within an agency with a finite budget. Moreover, challenging a denial under the APA is not as time consuming as it seems as there is generally no discovery, depositions, or interrogatories, although there may be some exceptions. It requires drafting a complaint, researching and writing a motion for summary judgment, reviewing and opposing the government’s motion for summary judgment and drafting a reply brief. Business immigration lawyers and their clients have generally refrained from suing. This is understandable as litigation is time consuming and a federal court may still give deference to the government’s reasoning behind a denial. We can try to overcome denials by responding to RFEs and appealing to the AAO. But after that, if you still want to show that you are right and the government has gotten it completely wrong, then it may be time to sue the government. Federal judges may have a different reaction than the typical USCIS adjudicator. They may be shocked and viscerally angry at the way the USCIS is interpreting the law and may just about reverse the denial!
Update: After the blog was posted, it was noticed that the complaint in Delta Information Systems, Inc. v. USCIS had been voluntarily dismissed. Michael Piston has informed the authors that a new complaint will be refiled with the beneficiary as the plaintiff.
Eleyteria Diakopoulos is a student at Brooklyn Law School and is presently an Extern at Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners PLLC. The authors also thank Sophia Genovese and David Isaacson for their assistance.
November 2014, after a stinging defeat at the polls, and with little left to lose in his political legacy, Obama announced a series of DHS policy memos that, when implemented, would rearrange his deportation priorities (after becoming the Deportation President with more than 2.5 million people deported), and create formalized system of Deferred Action to help long term resident undocumented people (the backbone of much of our service sector) to obtain work permits (DAPA). Obama apparently preferred to do this policy changes by memo, arguing that they were not "substantive" changes to regulation, and thus did not need to go through the formal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) rulemaking processing (which takes about 6 months, or less, done properly).
State Attorney Generals, led by Texas promptly brought suit, under a series of novel theories, arguing that this was no mere policy change, but rather a substantive fix with massive benefits and enormous costs to the states. Much of that was pure hyperbole, but when you can pick the right judge and luck into the right appeals court, even hyperbole can stop a President. The District Court stopped Obama's DAPA program, and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, for the second time, upheld that decision. Of course, to anyone who understood the issues, and knew the judges, this most recent decision is no surprise at all. We knew that this case was eventually headed to the Supreme Court. The only question was whether the Supreme Court would hear this case in the 2016 term and decide it right in the middle of the Presidential election, or whether it would deferred until the 2017 term.
As for me, I believe that the Supreme Court will overturn the 5th Circuit, likely unanimously, or in a 8-1 decision. The issues are very clear here. Can a state create an injury, claim that injury was caused by an executive branch policy, and then sue to stop that policy saying they were injured. That among other novel legal theories will be on the Supreme Court's plate.
All that said, Obama, could tomorrow, publish a proposed or emergency regulation in the Federal Register, and within six months DAPA would be in effect, and this lawsuit would be moot. You ask, Why would Obama not do that? Some argue that the 5th Circuit's decision on the "substantive" changes in the DAPA memo (completely made up by the 5th Circuit) bars the administration from proceeding on rule making. I am not sure I agree. I believe Obama could publish the proposed regulations and that would force the states to sue again in another matter. After all, if he had published the DAPA regulation when the District Court created the injunction, we would have DAPA today. The answer lies, clearly, in politics. Other than money, the answer is almost always politics. Someone once said that I gave too much credit to Obama being Machiavellian. The reality is, you do not need to be Machiavelli to see this unfolding. In the middle of a presidential election, when the GOP candidates are screaming and vilifying immigrants, the Democrats can come in with long faces and sadly explain to voting immigrant communities--See Obama tried, but those big, bad Republicans stopped us from helping you. This is the standard Obama line, and he used it in 2008 and 2012, and it worked. Hillary will (and already has started) using it for 2016.
The sad part is that the GOP, like Charlie Brown going to kick the football, falls into the trap every four years, because it refuses to ignore the eugenics, anti-population and anti-immigrants minority in the GOP and simply fix immigration law. If the GOP would do this before the election, they, perhaps, could stop being the national minority party in presidential elections. Given GOP politics at this time, don't count on this happening.
Finally, to those millions of immigrants out there would will eventually benefit from DAPA, and their employers (yes they all already are working and paying taxes)--Keep the faith. This is a fight we will eventually win. Until then keep evidence of your good moral character. Keep paying your taxes. Take good care of your children and spouses. And wait for the Congress of the United States to finally catch up to the reality that without these workers, much of our service sector would collapse.
I wish we could just stop playing politics with peoples' lives.
On September 24, 2015, the Department of State issued an update that supersedes the previously released October Visa Bulletin. By moving many filing dates back, the update radically changed the recently announced benefit offered by a revised procedure for determining immigrant visa availability and filing adjustment of status applications. The revised process allows foreign nationals to file adjustment of status applications in the United States or visa applications overseas once their filing dates are listed on a separate chart on the monthly Visa Bulletin, "Dates for Filing Applications." In the prior version of the October Visa Bulletin, these dates were significantly earlier than the priority dates available for final adjudications that would result in green cards. The filing of an adjustment application affords significant benefits such as work authorization, travel permission, the ability to exercise job mobility as well as the ability to protect the age of a child under the Child Status Protection Act.
With the latest change for October, the Department of State moved the dates back substantially. In a statement announcing the change, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services explained that following consultations with the Department of Homeland Security, the dates for filing applications for some categories in the family-sponsored and employment-based preferences were adjusted "to better reflect a timeframe justifying immediate action in the application process." Potentially thousands of applicants who had already gathered documents, prepared applications, paid for medical examinations, and incurred other costs based on the previous dates may have to wait many months for their filing dates to be current enough so they can file, unless the situation changes. Advocates are vowing to pursue possible avenues to make that happen.
As a background, INA 245(a)(3) only allows for the filing of an I-485 adjustment of status application when “an immigrant visa is immediately available.” Visa availability will no longer be defined by when visas are actually available. Both versions of the October Visa Bulletin now view it more broadly as “dates for filing visa applications within a time frame justifying immediate action in the application process.” The USCIS similarly views visa availability opaquely as "eligible applicants" who "are able to take one of the final steps in the process of becoming U.S. permanent residents." These new interpretations provide more flexibility for the State Department to move the filing date even further, and make it closer to current.
As proposed in a 2014 blog, visa availability ought to be based on just one visa being saved in the backlogged preference category, such as the India EB-3, like the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey. Just like one turkey every Thanksgiving day is pardoned by the President and not consumed, similarly one visa can also be left intact rather than consumed by the foreign national beneficiary. So long as there is one visa kept available, it would provide the legal basis for an I-485 filing through the earlier filing date, and this would be consistent with INA §245(a)(3). Filing dates could potentially advance and become current. Therefore, there was no legal basis to retrogress the priority dates. Rather the government could have advanced them.
It is not clear what the government's motivation was to move the dates backwards when there was no legal need to do so. Was it that the USCIS could not have been able to cope with the increase in adjustment filings or was it something more sinister such as USCIS or DOS officials with anti-immigrant tendencies gaining the upper hand and deciding not to grant benefits so easily to those caught in the crushing backlogs? Litigation options are potentially available. under the Administrative Procedure Act on the grounds that the government acted arbitrarily and capriciously. During the July 2007 visa bulletin fiasco, when the American Immigration Council's Legal Action Center threatened litigation after it rescinded the bulletin that made EB dates current, the government backed down. Any litigation strategy must ensure that the dual date system remains intact as a court could well resolve the issue by voiding the filing dates and restoring only one priority date as before.
The very least that the DOS and the USCIS should do is to allow a 30 day period for people who could have previously filed on October 1 to be able to do so. One saving grace is that even the revised October Visa Bulletin preserves the dual filing system, and thus there is flexibility in determining visa availability for purposes of establishing more advantageous filing dates in the future. In addition to litigation, consider pursuing other forms of advocacy. During the July 2007 visa bulletin fiasco, thousands of would be applicants sent roses Gandhi-style to the USCIS as a sign of peaceful protest. People should also sign this White House petition in order to get the requisite number of signatures so that it may be considered by the President. In the words attributed to Yogi Berra who died recently, "It's Deja Vu All Over Again." Of course, one will experience a more pleasant sense of deja vu if the government restores the earlier filing dates in the October 2015 visa bulletin like it did with the July 2007 visa bulletin.

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