If the petition process and first round of H1B RFEs aren’t stressful enough here comes round two of RFEs. When CIS finds something wrong with a petition, it opens the floodgates to finding more details out of place that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. The best way to prevent round two of RFEs is to prevent round one by identifying the common RFE triggers inherent to the situation in your case and plan accordingly, but this doesn’t always work. If you or your employee or client is facing down RFE round two, don’t panic. The petition has not been denied, CIS just needs more information to make a decision. The trick with any RFE is not to get caught up in the wording or individual demands, but rather to go back to the basics and see where evidence and analysis is lacking. To qualify for H1B status, the job must be a specialty occupation, which means as an industry standard or a standard hiring practice a minimum of a US bachelor’s degree or higher in the specialization is required for entry into the occupation. The beneficiary must hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its acceptable equivalency in the exact field of the specialty occupation. The employer must be economically viable and pay the beneficiary the prevailing wages and benefits for the specialty occupation, and there must be an employer-employee relationship in which the employer can hire, fire, promote, supervise and otherwise control the work the beneficiary does. Read the RFE and identify which of these requirements CIS is having trouble adjudicating. Is it the job? Is it the education? Is it the working conditions? At TheDegreePeople we work with difficult RFEs every year and we know how to identify where cases are lacking in evidence and analysis, and which common RFE traps beneficiaries fall into as CIS approval trends change from year to year. Let us review your case for free before you answer that second round of RFEs. Visit ccifree.com and we will get back to you in 48 hours or less.]]>
