Five tech and medical nonprofits represented by the American Immigration Lawyers Association are suing the Biden Administration in an effort to block the wage level preference final rule from going into law December 31st, 2021.
The lawsuit filed in a Washington, DC US District Court stated:
“It will have a deleterious impact on small businesses, start-ups, non-profits, rurally located businesses and other industries that rely on foreign highly skilled workers, but who are not able to compensate workers at the highest level.”
The lawsuit also states that this final rule was reviewed and approved by Chad Wolf, who was the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. He did not have the legal and valid authority to review and approve this final rule because he was not properly appointed to his position of authority.
This rule was proposed by the Trump Administration on its way out to prioritize H-1B beneficiaries based on wage level. This would effectively do away with the lottery system, which was designed to give equal footing to businesses and organizations large and small, rural and urban, in areas expensive and impoverished. Many of these rural areas rely on foreign workers because they lack a pool of highly skilled workers to provide essential services to the community or cultivate sustainable economic development.
Wage level preference would be based on the H-1B occupation in that geographic location. However, when put into action this regulation gets murky in areas where economic opportunity and urban density is patchy and gives preference to large and wealthy businesses over small businesses and nonprofits across the board.
CCI TheDegreePeople.com will continue to track this lawsuit and advise accordingly. However, we do anticipate wage level issues will be a common RFE this year in light of current controversy. We are here to help you identify and fix the weaknesses in H-1B petitions before you file, and to help successfully answers RFEs.
For a free review of your H-1B case, visit www.ccifree.com. We will respond in 4 hours or less.