Since 2017, H-1B visa applicants have faced specialty occupation and employer-employee relationship issues from USCIS wrongly adjudicating petitions based on the visa’s own eligibility rules.  So far, RFE and Denial responses and court challenges have been successful in overturning these decisions.  Now, a new regulation has been sent for review

RFE rates are still high for H-1B petitions, and processing delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic are making it even harder for employees to get their visas approved to meet their start dates.  Having to answer one or two – and sometimes as much as three – rounds of RFEs

The E-3 work visa is very similar to the H-1B visa, except that only Australian citizens are eligible.  That means if you are an Australian citizen with a specialty occupation job offer in the United States, this is the visa for you. There are 10,500 annual E-3 visas, not including

The H-1B approval rate for the second quarter of FY2020 came in at 87.1%, a nearly 4% rise from the same time last year.  However, the RFE rate remained high, at 35.8%, with a 68.2% rate of approval after response.  That means around one in every three H-1B petitions is

One of the H-1B visa eligibility requirements is that there must be an employer-employee relationship.  What this means is that the employer must be able to hire, fire, promote, and otherwise control the work the H-1B employee performs. Consulting firms are vulnerable to employer-employee relationship issues because of the independent

In the past year, USCIS faced three convictions regarding illegally denying RFEs due to specialty occupation issues.  Despite these judicial decisions, USCIS continues to adjudicate H-1B petitions wrongly, which means H-1B beneficiaries still must take steps to prevent and fight these specialty occupation RFEs. Here is the issue: USCIS defines

There are many pathways through education and they don’t all include the classroom.  However, USCIS needs a clear quantitative measure of qualitative learning – whether it’s on the job, from incomplete college, or from an unaccredited program. H-1B beneficiaries that have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to perform the

Wage Level Issue RFEs and Denials are common for H-1B jobs set at Level 1 Wages.  The reason for this comes in two steps: first, H-1B visas are reserved for foreign nationals working in specialty occupations.  These jobs require a bachelor’s degree or higher as a minimum requirement to perform. 

When USCIS finds one issue in an H-1B petition, they tend to find more.  That’s because an RFE issue raises a red flag that triggers a close scrutiny of the rest of the petition.  The most common Double RFE we see is the Specialty Occupation + Wage Level Issue RFE.

When USCIS finds one problem with an H-1B petition, they usually find more.  One RFE issue opens the door for close scrutiny of the entire case, and that is how we get situations like the Nightmare RFE. This RFE is virtually impossible to answer by its own guidelines in the