AILA Announces Update From DOS on EB-2 Visa Availability
March 29 2011 | 
| Hits: 9
BALCA Decision on Referral Policy for PERM Applications
January 21 2011 | | Hits: 9
A recent BALCA decision sets the standard for employee referral programs. In order to make the employee referral program recruitment step meaningful, an employer must minimally be able to document that (1) its employee referral program offers incentives to employees for referral of candidates, (2) that the employee referral program was in effect during the recruitment effort the employer is relying on to support its labor certification application, and (3) that the Employer ' s employees were on notice of the job opening at issue. See Matter of Sanmina-Sci, 1/19/2011 2010-PER-00697.
"EB-3 Category," India - Discouraging news from the Department of State
December 22 2010 | | Hits: 10
According to Charles Oppenheim (spokesperson for the Department of State) who was present at a recent AILA meeting with the Nebraska Service Center, there are an estimated 55,000 EB-3 India cases from April 2007 and before. With the per-country third-preference limitation of approximately 2800 immigrant visas per year, this backlog is expected to take approximately 15 years to clear. However, neither the DOS nor USCIS have a clear idea on pending I-485 cases at USCIS district Offices awaiting priority date, but have already completed an interview. This could be 45% of the total cases. DOS and USCIS are working to confirm these numbers.
Source: AILA-NSC Minutes dated 11/4/10; posted 12/15/10
AILA Update on PERM Appeals
May 30 2008 | | Hits: 11
AILA liaison reports that DOL has conducted a review of denied PERM cases in the appeals/motions queue for "clear error," and that 350-- more than one-third of the approximately 900 cases reviewed thus far --have been returned to the PERM queue for processing. This is the result of a pilot program advocated by AILA, as discussed in this passage from the minutes of the April 3, 2008, stakeholder meeting: "The DOL has initiated a pilot 'sub-queue' of 'government error' cases by pre-screening them. Examples of 'government error' would be requiring Kellogg language when it is not required; a clear communication problem such as where an audit letter is not received by an employer or representative, or where an audit reply is timely submitted but is not matched with the case, and data entry errors on mail-in cases." -Courtesy AILA Infonet
DOL Releases PERM Statistics
April 08 2008 | | Hits: 12
An April 2008 DOL Fact Sheet offers selected statistics on PERM processing.
FY 2007 Public Disclosure PERM data
March 03 2008 | | Hits: 13
DOL's ETA recently posted FY 2007 public disclosure PERM data on the DOL website.