Need Help?

h1b petition

Specialty Occupation and Wage Level H1B RFEs: Who Dropped the Ball?

st, but these mistakes have far-reaching consequences. Maybe your team didn’t provide enough detailed evidence regarding the duties and responsibilities of the job in question. Whatever the reason for the RFE, it’s important that you identify where the case is lacking in evidence, whose job it is to provide it, and fix it. At TheDegreePeople, we work with difficult RFEs every year. We can help you identify what went wrong and how to fix it. For a free review of your case visit ccifree.com/. We will get back to you in 48 hours or less.]]>

Attention: H1B Quota Opens April 1st for Fiscal Year 2019!

st is coming right up! This is the date when CIS begins accepting cap-subject H1B petitions, and at TheDegreePeople, we predict the quota will be met within 5 business days. While demand for H1B visas continues to rise, there are still only 65,000 visas available for employees with US Bachelors degrees or their equivalency or higher, and an additional 20,000 for employees with US Masters degrees or their equivalent or higher. Last year, CIS accepted 236,000 petitions in five days. CIS is required to accept petitions for at least five business days, or until the quota has been exceeded. We predict that this year will be no different, giving beneficiaries, their employers, and their lawyers a very small window to file. When the number of petitions exceeds the visas available, CIS uses a randomized lottery to select visas. That means you need to be all ready to file on April 1st. While there’s nothing you can do for yourself, or your employee or client against lottery odds, you can make sure they 1) get into the lottery by filing on April 1st, and 2) file an impeccable petition that will be easy to approve. When you’re organizating the petition, keep in mind that some jobs and degrees are RFE magnets. For example, the Indian three-year bachelors degree will likely trigger an RFE if there is no credential evaluation included in the petition that converts work experience into a fourth year of college credit. The job Computer Systems Analysis tends to trigger RFEs because there are hardly any US bachelors degree majors with that exact title. That means candidates with this job need to include a credential evaluation with their petition that shows they have the equivalent of a degree in Computer Systems Analysis or an RFE will arrive instead of approval. Last year, we saw an unprecedented number of RFEs for computer programmers at level 1 wages. If your, or your employee or client is in this situation, you will want to include an expert opinion letter explaining why the job meets H1B specialization requirements. Before you file, let us review your case. We have experts and credential evaluators on hand to write the evaluation or opinion letter your client needs to prevent an RFE. Visit ccifree.com/ for a no charge and no obligation review of your petition, or your employee or client’s petition before you file. We will get back to you in 48 hours or less with a full analysis and pre-evaluation, along with our recommendations.]]>

Your Very Very Last Minute H1B Checklist

  • Consistent dates, locations, spellings and other answers.
  • Double-check all of the documents and applications included in the petition to make sure all of the answers are consistent. Inconsistencies between applications, educational documents, and resumes can trigger a pretty serious RFE as CIS is cracking down on visa fraud. Inconsistent dates and locations for where the candidate has lived, worked, and gone to school are big red flags, as are misspellings.
    1. Education clearly meets CIS requirements for H1B eligibility.
    Find out right now. Simply go to ccifree.com and attach the candidate’s educational documents and an accurate, current resume, along with the job title and we will respond within 24 hours with a full pre-evaluation of your case. We will include all of your options for writing the evaluation for the educational equivalency needed to get the H1B visa approved. We offer rush delivery options to get your credential evaluation to you in as fast as three hours. Educational requirements for CIS are tricky. If the candidate has a degree from outside of the United States, do NOT file without a credential evaluation. The candidate may have a degree earned in the United States that is not H1B qualified. The degree must be an exact match for the job or CIS will not approve the visa.
    1. Documentation clearly shows the job is specialized.
    H1B requirements state the job must require a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its foreign equivalent to be considered specialized. The H1B visa program’s purpose is to bring highly skilled workers to the US to fill these highly specialized jobs that the US workforce cannot fill on its own. That means you have to show that the job requires a specialized skillset, which means an advanced degree in the exact field of employ. To prove this, provide a copy of the ad for the job that includes duties and minimum requirements, as well as the official job description itself. Also include ads and descriptions for similar jobs in the same field to show that this job is specialized across the board and not just to accommodate the candidate’s visa. If the job is particularly specialized for this particular company, include an expert opinion letter as to why this is the case.
    1. Organized and in order!
    Make sure your petition is in order with all of the paperwork where CIS expects it to be. A disorganized petition is not pleasant to read and this will impact approval. File for the audience and it will pay off in the end. Good luck! About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

    H1B RFE Season: How to Get Through Approved!

  • Easy to communicate with. They should answer when you call, respond to your texts and emails, and answer your questions with confidence.
    1. Follows CIS approval trends. The person you want writing your evaluation knows what CIS is looking for. CIS trends change, and an evaluation that worked last year may not work again this year. As in any job, the best professionals are the ones who keep on learning and changing with the industry.
    1. Works with RFEs and Difficult Cases regularly. You got an RFE. You want to work with someone who works with people in your situation and consistently achieves the outcome for others that you want for yourself.
    Don’t let RFE season get you down. You are not alone in this, and there are plenty of helpful professionals who are happy to consult with you on your case. Good luck!! About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director at TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a free analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.  ]]>

    FY2017 H-1B Predictions and Requirements

  • Your client’s job must be a specialty occupation. This means that to perform the duties of the job, your client must hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent in a related field. In recent years however, CIS has issued RFE’s for degrees that do not exactly match candidates’ job titles. If your client’s major is not an exact match for his or her job title, you need to find a credential evaluation agency that can take a close look at your client’s education to count classroom contact hours in classes matching your client’s job towards a degree equivalency. The evaluator can also convert years of progressive work experience in the field to years of college credit in the major of your client’s job offer. To show that your client’s job is a specialty occupation, you need to provide evidence that your client’s employer requires this degree for this job, and that similar positions in similar companies also require an advanced degree. If this is not the case, you need to provide evidence as to why your client’s particular job is so specifically complex as to require an advanced degree to carry out its duties.
    1. Your client must hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent. H-1b visas are for specialty occupations that require a bachelor’s degree or higher to perform. If your client has a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent, and the degree matches the job, all you have to do is submit the educational documents with the petition. However, if your client’s degree is from a different country – particularly a country with a three-year bachelor’s degree – you need to have your client’s education evaluated for US equivalence. This is because educational systems vary from country to country, and CIS must clearly see the value of your client’s education in terms of US educational value. Some post-secondary degrees from other countries are the equivalent of US bachelor’s degrees even though the word “degree” is not in the title. Others are not. A detailed evaluation from a credential evaluator with expert understanding of international education is needed to meet this requirement. For three-year degrees, a progressive work experience conversion is needed to fill in the missing fourth year. Although three-year degrees, like the Indian three-year degree, have the same if not more number of classroom contact hours as a US four-year degree, CIS does not accept this equivalency on face without a detailed credential evaluation.
    1. There must be an employer-employee relationship. This means that your client’s employer can hire, fire, promote, pay, and otherwise control the work your client does. You can show this by submitting a copy of the employee contract or providing other documentation regarding your client’s job.
    1. Your client must be paid the prevailing wage for his or her job. Prevailing wage is determined based on the job, the company, the geographic location, and other factors. To prove that your client will be paid the prevailing wage for his or her job, you need to provide evidence that states common salaries for your client’s occupation in similar companies in similar locations, as well as proof that your client’s employer will be paying that wage. At the same time, you also have to show that your client’s employer is economically viable to pay your client the prevailing wage without affecting the salaries of other employees, operating costs, or other aspects of the business.
    Before you file your client’s H-1b petition, have a credential evaluator review his or her education to make sure all your ducks are in a row. If you submit a petition without an evaluation where one is needed, you can expect an RFE. While an RFE is not the end of the world, it is a big red flag on your client’s petition, and will trigger CIS to comb over the petition and find misplaced details that would otherwise have gone by unnoticed. CIS has a big job to do when it comes to cap-subject H-1b visa selection. Make their job easier by making sure your client’s visa is easy to approve, not by giving them a big red flag to look at. Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723.]]>

    Who is to Blame for Your RFE?

    When is it the attorney’s fault? Very rarely, an attorney will file a PERM incorrectly. Generally, however, the attorney error occurs when the candidate’s education is not reviewed by an education specialist before the PERM is filed. In this case, the candidate’s account of the education is incorrect or does not meet the CIS definition of a degree for that particular Visa. Unless this is the case, don’t file your attorney over an RFE. When is it the evaluator’s fault and how can it be the fault of the evaluation but NOT the person who wrote it? There are situations when the RFE is clearly the evaluator’s fault because the evaluation was incorrect. For example, when a non-accredited PGD is listed as accredited, CIS jumps on that inaccuracy to issue an RFE. However, every evaluation is different, and evaluations for different Visas must be written very differently. When an evaluator writes an evaluation for any particular visa, he or she must know both the Visa regulations AND current CIS trends. The evaluator may have done the job properly but the equivalence does not work for the particular Visa. For example, someone with a four-year degree in electrical engineering can have an evaluation written perfectly showing equivalence for a US bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and then receive an RFE because his or her job is in the field of computer software analysis. This sort of mismatch triggered an onslaught of RFE’s this year. The evaluator did a good job, but the evaluation was not correct for the purposes of the Visa. In this case, you may have likely found the write evaluator, he or she just wrote the wrong evaluation correctly. To avoid this, make sure you order your evaluation from an agency that knows education regulations for each Visa. If you advise an evaluation agency that you need an evaluation for an H1B visa and they don’t ask about the job offer, find a new agency. The degree must precisely fit the field of employ for this Visa and the evaluator needs to know this information so they can evaluate an equivalency to the proper degree. If you are not asked about the job offer, the agency simply does not understand what is required of H1B Visa candidates. If you have already paid an evaluator and a mistake was made, I suggest you go back to that evaluator to try to address your RFE. However, if the evaluation agency did not make sure that the evaluation was written for the particular Visa it was ordered for, that may just be how they operate. They may just be writing standard evaluations and not be authorized to make the conversions necessary to prove equivalence between fields or across educational system structures. You cannot expect an agency to do something they don’t claim to do. The evaluation agency you want is one that will look at the education, as well as the visa requirements and current CIS trends. When is it CIS’s fault? Government bureaucracies make mistakes and some RFE’s are simply factually incorrect. Everything in a petition could be done correctly and you can still receive an RFE. Often when CIS is at fault, the RFE will state that an accredited university is not accredited, or that a qualified evaluator is not qualified. While these RFE’s are frustrating, they are also easy fixes. With the help of your evaluator, you can easily provide these facts and receive an approval. When is it the Candidate’s Fault? Candidates make mistakes. They have been known to insist that their high school documents are college level. They have also been known to provide poorly translated documents, or even fraudulently translated documents. Often but not always, a good evaluator can pick up on these problems before starting in on the evaluation, but not all evaluation agencies will review a candidate’s case before accepting payment and writing it. To be sure that no problems arise further down the road that can trigger an RFE, we always review all of the documents before accepting a credential evaluation order. Before we have seen all of the education documents, a resume, and the RFE or Denial if one has been issued, we have no way to discuss any given candidate’s case. We want to discover any issues in the documents right away in order to eliminate the vast majority of client confusion and misinformation. When is it no one’s fault? Sometimes, it really is no one’s fault. CIS trends change. As we have seen especially in the past seven or so years, CIS trends can change very quickly. We can only, at best, know what they generally do and what they have done. CIS can be a wildcard, and for that reason we can never guarantee what they are going to do. When this happens, all you can do is carefully read the RFE, understand what is being asked of whom and who can provide the requested evidence, and do your best. Can we draw a usable conclusion? Yes. If you have a competent attorney, work with him or her to resolve the RFE. If you used an evaluation agency before receiving an RFE, go back to them. Next time, make sure you are working with an agency that reviews the education and Visa requirements before you order. If that is not their policy, find a new agency. If that is their policy, hear them out. As much as I would like your business, an RFE is really not a reason to jump ship if an evaluation agency’s overall work has been good. Few agencies have passed through the RFE gauntlet this year unscathed, and many of these RFE’s are not the fault of the agency. Or the fault of the attorney. If you receive an RFE, the best solution is to remain calm and deal with it as best you can. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.]]>

    Scroll to Top