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The Specialty Occupation RFE has become the scourge of H-1B hopefuls and their teams, and they are impacting occupations that had never been called into question before 2017.  With the high rate of H-1B RFEs, it is important to understand what Specialty Occupation means, how the burden of proof as shifted in the past few […]

IT professionals have been hit the hardest by current USCIS policy changes to restrict the H-1B program without statutory basis.  In 2015, the Denial rate for H-1B petitions was just 6%.  This year, that number has reached 24% across industries, but IT companies have been hit the hardest. Twelve IT companies that saw Denial rates […]

Following the Trump Administration’s “Buy American and Hire American” policy, USCIS declassified documents show that approval standards for H-1B visas have changed without statutory basis.  This has led to a massive spike in RFEs and Denials for H-1B petitions – both for initial filings, and for H-1B extensions for cases that had previously been approved. […]

With the rising rate of H-1B denials being overturned in appeals and recently declassified USCIS memos that clearly showed restrictions to H-1B approval without legal basis, it is clear that USCIS is issuing RFEs for approvable petitions. H-1B extension petitions for the same jobs, beneficiaries, and petitioners that have already been approved are getting RFEs […]

When USCIS finds a problem with your petition, or with your client or employee’s H-1B petition, more and more often they are finding something wrong with your response.  The second round of H-1B RFEs hit H-1B hopefuls harder than ever and like a ton of bricks last H-1B season, and this year is equally bad. […]

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with difficult H-1B RFEs every year, and over the past two years, we have seen a disproportionate number of specialty occupation RFEs for jobs that have never before been called into question.  This RFE and Denial trend was recently confirmed by the declassification of USCIS documents that fundamentally increased the […]

The American Immigration Lawyers Association released USCIS documents following the settlement of a FOIA lawsuit that confirm their suspicions that USCIS has been limiting H-1B visas without legal precedent. The USCIS documents made public are “H-1B RFE Standards” from March 23, 2017, and “H-1B AC21 Denial Standards, from July 17, 2017.  These changes followed the […]

The rate of H-1B petitions receiving an RFE instead of outright approval has skyrocketed to 60%.  That means if you, or your employee or client filed an H-1B petition back in April and made the lottery, they most likely received an RFE.  Of those 60% who received RFEs, just 60% of those RFEs are overturned […]

Over the past three H-1B cap-subject seasons, we have seen an unprecedented rise in specialty occupation RFEs calling jobs into question that had never run into trouble before.  This trend is echoed across the entire H-1B visa program, with overall approval rates plummeting from over 80% in 2015 to around 60% for FY2019.  USICS approval […]