Need Help?
Message Sheila D, Executive Director with any questions
9544405599

h1b RFE

5 Red Flags to Fix in Your H-1B Petition to Prevent an Education RFE

Uncategorized

Education RFEs may be the most consistently common H-1B RFEs over the past decade. 

H-1B eligibility requires beneficiaries to hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent in the field of the H-1B job.  While employers routinely hire employees with degrees in related fields with work experience in the field of the H-1B job or enough educational overlap to ensure qualification, USCIS will not approve their visas without a credential evaluation.  Employers routinely hire employees with incomplete college or no college if they have the field experience and skills needed to perform the job, but USCIS will not approve their visas without a credential evaluation.  Many H-1B employees earned their degrees in a foreign country. 

USCIS will not approve their work visas without a credential evaluation.  This requirement necessitates additional hand-holding because it is on the applicant to clearly show that the employee has equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree or higher in terms of US academic standards.

There are very specific situations that will prompt USCIS to scrutinize the petition which can quickly escalate into a complex RFE that is very difficult to answer. 

  1. Degree earned outside of the United States.
  2. Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree.
  3. Major does not exactly match the field of the H-1B job.
  4. Incomplete college.
  5. Missing college or college was completed at an unaccredited institution.

If one of these situations exists in your case it is essential to fix it before you file.  If an RFE has already arrived, the solution is the same.  Include a detailed credential evaluation written uniquely for your case which takes the job, the education, work experience, H-1B visa requirements, and USCIS approval trends into account.  This may include a close evaluation of course content, and it may include a work experience conversion. 

Do not submit an H-1B petition or RFE response without making sure all of the red flags are fixed.  Let us review your case for free.  Visit www.ccifree.com and we will respond in 4 hours or less.

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com.  Sheila specializes in overturning RFEs and Denials for work visas.

Case Study: RFE for Wrong Degree Specialization Overturned!

Uncategorized

Case Study: RFE for Wrong Degree Specialization Overturned!

USCIS and employers have a different idea of what qualified an H-1B employee for their specialty occupation.  It is commonplace for employers to hire a candidate with a degree in a field related to the position, given they have proper work experience to master the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to perform it.

It has been years since USCIS has regularly approved H-1B cases in which a beneficiary has the required US Bachelor’s degree in a field RELATED to the specialty occupation.  USCIS will not outright approve an H-1B visa unless the beneficiary has a degree in the exact specialization of the occupation, or a detailed credential evaluation that explains how their educational and field experience background makes the equivalent of the correct degree specialization.

Every year, we have clients come to us in this situation.  The way we overturn these RFEs is to write a detailed evaluation that analyzes the course content of the degree earned to highlight college credit hours earned in the exact field of the H-1B job.  Then, we take progressive work experience into account to bridge the gap between the beneficiary’s education specialization and the field of the H-1B job.  Three years of progressive work experience in the field of the H-1B job in which the beneficiary can prove they took on progressively more responsibility and the nature of their duties and tasks became increasingly complex and specialized can be converted into one year of college credit in the field of the H-1B job.  This conversion must be written by a professor with the authority to grant college credit for work experience.

At TheDegreePeople.com, we work with professors in all fields to write the work experience conversion for the credential evaluation you or your employee or client needs to get that RFE overturned.  There are no cookie cutter solutions to H-1B RFEs because every case is different.  Every job is different, and every educational pathway is different, especially when it comes to highly skilled individuals.  All evaluations are uniquely researched and written with regards to your, or your employee or client’s education, job, work experience, and visa. 

For a free review of your case visit ccifree.com.  We will get back to you in 48 hours or less.

What is Different about the FY2020 H-1B Lottery Beginning April 1st?

Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals
This year, there have been some changes made to the H-1B lottery process and to approval adjudication. 

As in years previous, 65,000 H-1B visas are available for beneficiaries with US Bachelor degrees or higher or their equivalent, and 20,000 H-1B visas are allotted for beneficiaries with advanced degrees of US Master degree or higher.  What is different about this year is that in previous years the 20,000 advanced degree visas are selected in the first lottery, and then the visas left over are thrown in with the second general lottery for the remaining 65,000 visas.  This year, the general lottery will happen first.  Then, the remaining petitions for beneficiaries with advanced degrees will enter into the lottery for the additional 20,000 visas.  This is good news for advanced degree holders.

The second difference is that this year USCIS adjudicators have the authority to deny H-1B visas outright without first issuing an RFE to give petitioners a chance to defend and strengthen their cases. 

It is estimated that there will be about 150,000 H-1B visa petitions submitted the first week of April for cap-subject H-1B visas for FY2020.  Last year, the approval rate for H-1B candidates selected in the lottery was 60%, a rate that has been declining since 2016.  Along with this, the approval rate for cases that received an RFE dropped from 83.2% in 2015 to just 62.3% in 2018 with a massive spike in the overall rate of RFE responses from USCIS.

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com, over 90% of our clients who came to us with H-1B RFEs succeeded in getting their RFEs overturned and their visas approved.  We work with difficult cases every year, and this year we urge you to anticipate any RFEs you, or your client or employee’s case is likely to run into BEFORE you file.  This means additional documentation, expert opinion letters from the RIGHT kind of expert, and credential evaluations must be submitted with the initial filing. 

For a free review of your case, visit ccifree.com/.  We will get back to you in 48 hours or less.

]]>

H1B 2019 Post-Memorandum: Who Caused that RFE?

Credential Evaluation, immigration, Visa Approvals

Sometimes it’s no one’s fault, and sometimes it’s fault of USCIS. When working with any bureaucratic process, there is the possibility of error.  When working with USCIS, there is the understanding that processing errors occur, and that their approval trends are volatile and can be unpredictable.  It can be difficult to anticipate which parts of the law they will interpret which way from year to year.  If approval issues arise due to bureaucratic or human error, there will likely be a way to address it.  A Denial is not the end of the road, it is just harder to overturn than an RFE.  If it is no one’s fault, or if USCIS pulls a fast one on us again, we can find a way to work around it. Sometimes the lawyer caused the RFE. Occasionally, an immigration attorney will file the wrong document, or file the petition wrong.  While this is rare, it can cost an outright approval.  To prevent this, legal assistants are encouraged to check in with TheDegreePeople.com to make sure that they have all of the necessary immigration forms, labor forms, and documentation necessary to file everything on time, in the right order, and filled out appropriately. Sometimes the beneficiary caused the RFE. It is not uncommon for a beneficiary to misunderstand the US academic equivalency of their education.  Sometimes a bachelor’s degree in one country is not a bachelor’s degree in the United States because even though the words translate the educational value does not.  Some certifications and professional licenses in some countries are the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree in that field, while the US license or certification is not.  Sometimes a beneficiary will have a degree from an unaccredited academic institution, or even from a degree mill.  It is important for beneficiaries to understand their education, and what it means in terms of US value, and to make sure that their school is accredited.  If the beneficiary does not have the necessary education, it is their responsibility to make sure they have enough education and work experience to make up the equivalency. Sometimes it’s the employer or the job that caused the RFE. If the Labor Condition Application (LCA) is filled out incorrectly or misfiled, if there are discrepancies between the job description and the entry on the LCA, if USCIS feels that the wage level was set incorrectly or that the job does not meet specialty occupation requirements, issues will likely arise in the approval process.  It is recommended that all petitions now include an expert opinion letter clarifying that the job meets H1B specialty occupation requirements and explaining why the wage level is set as it is to meet H1B requirements. Before you file, let us review your case to make sure all your bases are covered.  It is more important this year than ever before to get it right the first time, because you may not get a second chance.  For a free review of your case visit ccifree.com/.  We will get back to you in 48 hours or less.  ]]>

Scroll to Top