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Complex RFEs can cause employment start date delays which throw a wrench in overall company workflow.  In recent years, we have seen as many as three rounds of RFEs before visa approval.  If your registration was selected for the second round of the H-1B lottery, it is essential to get that visa approved the FIRST time to ensure an on-time employee start date.

General Housekeeping

Before you file, make sure your completed petition has been double-checked for consistent answers across all forms and supporting evidence and documentation, including employment dates on resumes and correct spelling.  Make sure that the petition organized and readable with everything included in the correct order.

Employer-Employee Relationship

If the H-1B employee will be working at a third-party worksite for any portion of the H-1B visa period, include added evidence to prove that the employer-employee relationship will be maintained throughout.  If the business is a consulting firm or other structure with workflow dependent on client or customer contracts, include an itinerary of the work the H-1B employee will be performing for the duration of the H-1B visa period including client and customer contact information.

Education

H-1B eligibility requirements state that the beneficiary must hold a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its academic equivalent in a related field, and USCIS has been approving visas based on the degree specialization being an exact match for the field of the H-1B job.  If the degree is in a different specialization, incomplete, or earned outside of the United States, include a detailed credential evaluation that shows the beneficiary has the academic equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree or higher in the field of the H-1B job.  This may entail a work experience conversion wherein three years of progressive work experience in the field of the H-1B job can be converted into one year of college credit in that field by a professor with the authority to grant college credit for work experience.  At CCI TheDegreePeople.com, we write every evaluation uniquely to take the education, work experience, job, visa, and USCIS approval trends into account.  We work with professors with the authority to write work experience conversions as needed.

Specialty Occupation

H-1B eligibility requirements state that the proffered position must normally require a US bachelor’s degree or higher or its equivalent as a minimum educational requirement for being hired to the position.  However, USCIS has been adjudicating “normally” as “always,” so jobs that do not ALWAYS have this minimum degree requirement according to the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook have been running into trouble.  If this is the case for your situation, you will need to prove one or more of the following:

1. The position in question is uniquely specialized to require minimum attainment of a bachelor’s degree or higher in the field of the H-1B job.  Again, a related field will not work for USCIS approval trends.
2. The employer can show past hiring practices of this minimum educational qualification for the position in question.
3. It is an industry standard that this position requires a bachelor’s degree or higher minimum educational qualification.

This will require additional documentation including the ad for the job and ads for the same position for different companies within the industry to prove industry standard.  Additionally, include evidence of past hiring practices and a detailed breakdown of the specialized duties and responsibilities of the job which are attained through completion of a US bachelor’s degree program in the field.  Finally, include an expert opinion letter written by an expert in the field of the H-1B job with extensive experience working in the field, including leadership positions and experience making hiring decisions regarding the proffered position.  At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with experts in every field ready to lend their professional opinion to your case. 

Before you file, make sure all red flags and areas of weakness in your case are identified and addressed to ensure approval and avoid time-consuming, stressful, and costly RFEs. 

Let us review your case for free.  Visit www.ccifree.com.  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.

If you, or if your employee or client meets employment-based green card eligibility requirements, this is the year to file.  In a normal calendar year, there are 140,000 of these green cards available to companies that permanently employ foreign nationals.  This year, starting October 1, 2021, there will be over 290,000 available.

Why is this the case?  Unused family-based visas roll over into the following fiscal year as employment-based visas.  Last year, 150,000 foreign nationals were unable to use these visas because immigration requires an in-person interview at the US consulate in their home country.  Last year, many of these consulates were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  That means the number of employment-based green cards available for the fiscal year of 2022 will more than double.

Employment-based green cards are broken down into five preference categories:

Employment-based first preference:

1. Workers in the arts, sciences, athletics, education, and business fields with extraordinary ability.
2. Outstanding researchers and professors.
3. Multinational managers and executives that meet certain criteria.

Employment-based second preference:

1. Workers whose proffered positions require a US master’s degree or higher or its academic equivalent.
2. Workers who have a National Interest Waiver.

Employment-based third preference:

1. Workers with bachelor’s degrees
2. Skilled workers
3. Unskilled labor workers

Employment-based fourth preference:

1. Certain special immigrants who fall into this category as detailed by USCIS.
2. Religious workers
3. Others as detailed by USCIS

Employment-based fifth preference: 

1. Immigrant investors who have invested at least $1 million
2. Immigrant investors who have invested at least $500,000 in a Targeted Employment Area.

ears, employment-based green card holders can qualify for US citizenship.  In addition to this benefit of employment-based green card status, beneficiaries can travel freely, their children can attend US public schools, and their spouses and children can work in the US.

Not sure what preference category is a fit for your situation?  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.

This is the second year the H-1B lottery has been conducted as a two-step process, with an initial electronic registration and subsequent selection and invitation to submit completed petitions.  On March 30^th 2021, USCIS conducted the first lottery, selecting 87,500 registrations to fill 85,000 H-1B visa slots.  Applicants in the first round had until June 30^th, 2021 to submit.  Only 37,000 did so, and around 48% of those submission were for the US Master’s quota, not the regular cap.

On July 29^th, 2021, USCIS selected 27,717 additional registrations to submit completed petitions starting August 2^nd until November 3, 2021.  If your team’s registration was selected in round two, there is no reason to wait until the last minute to submit and delay the employee start date for FY 2022, especially since RFEs are still a major hurdle facing petitioners and their beneficiaries.

Before you file, make sure you have an airtight petition that meets all H-1B eligibility requirements and takes USCIS approval trends into account:

• Degrees earned outside of the United States, three-year bachelor’s degrees, incomplete college, missing college, and degrees earned in specializations that are not an exact fit for the H-1B job field all need credential evaluations to fill in the gaps between the education the beneficiary has and the education USCIS will approve.  This means a unique evaluation that takes progressive work experience into account to be converted into college credit.

• If the job does not ALWAYS require a US bachelor’s degree or higher to perform, include additional evidence as to why this particular position for this particular employer meets specialty occupation requirements.  This must include an expert opinion letter written by an expert with extensive experience working in the field of the H-1B job, and preferably has experience making hiring decisions regarding the position in question.

• If the job is for a consulting firm, or another business structure that contracts work from third parties, or entails the H-1B employee spending time at third-party worksites, include a complete itinerary of the work the H-1B employee will be performing – including client and customer contact information – for the duration of the H-1B visa period.  Document how the employer will be able to control the work of the H-1B employee even at third-party worksites.

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com, we work with difficult RFE cases every year, and these are the three main triggers for complex RFEs that quickly escalate into a big, expensive, time-consuming headache.  The best way to address RFE issues is to prevent them in the first place.  Let us review your case for free before you file to identify areas of weakness and advise solutions.

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.

In a normal year, there are 140,000 Employment-Based Green Cards available.  However, 2020 was not a normal year and over 150,000 relatives of US citizens and green card holders were unable to immigrate because US Embassies abroad were closed due to the pandemic.  Ever year, there is a 226,000 family-based green card quota.  If this is not reached, these remaining number rolls over into employment-based green cards available for the following year.  That means, starting October 1, 2021, there will be over 290,000 employment-based green cards available, more than doubling what is available in a normal year.

This is great news for employers and foreign employees.  Employment based green card holders have permanent resident status.  They can travel freely both within and outside of the United States, their spouses and unmarried children under 21 are eligible to work in the United States, and their children can access the US school system.

Employment based green cards break down into five preference sections:

USCIS defines EB-1 workers as those with, “extraordinary abilities in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics; Outstanding professors and researchers; or Certain multinational managers and executives.

EB-2 workers are professionals that work jobs that require attainment of a US Master’s degree or higher or its equivalent or have a National Interest Waiver, and EB-3 workers are skilled, unskilled, or other professionals.  EB-4 and EB-5 are less common categories.  EB-4 includes a variety of special immigrants, and EB-5 are immigrant investors.

If you or if your employee or client meets Employment Based Green Card eligibility requirements, this is the year to apply. 

For a free review of your case visit www.ccifree.com before you file.  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.

If your H-1B application for FY2021 was rejected, you may get a second chance to file.  USCIS is now accepting petitions from last year that were rejected because the start date was LATER THAN October 1, 2020. 

Why is USCIS doing this?  Last year, under the new two-step application process and the general uncertainties of the pandemic, the H-1B cap was not filled from filings from the initial selection so there was another lottery in August of 2020.  While petitioners had until November 16, 2021 to file, the start date was still required to be set for October 1, 2020.  If this is your situation, it’s time to clean up the petition and resubmit.

The H-1B approval process can be long and arduous with at least one round of RFEs to respond to.  That means to get to work by the start date, applicants need to take steps to prevent issues that may delay visa approval.  At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with difficult cases and RFEs every year.  We keep an eye on USCIS approval trends and here is what we have noticed:

• If the beneficiary’s education is ANYTHING BUT a US degree in the exact field of the H-1B job, you will need to include a credential evaluation.  This credential evaluation must take the job, the education, work experience, visa requirements, and USCIS approval trends into account.
• If the US DOL Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for the H-1B position does not ALWAYS require a bachelor’s degree minimum for entry into the position, you need to include additional documentation fortified with an expert opinion letter to meet specialty occupation requirements.  This letter must be written by an expert in the field of the H-1B job with experience working directly in the field and in positions of leadership wherein hiring decisions regarding the position in question and supporting positions were made.  Wage level issues can also be addressed in this letter.
• If the position is consultant or for a consulting firm, include a complete itinerary of the work the H-1B beneficiary will be performing for the duration of the H-1B visa period.  This must include client and customer contact information.

Let us review your petition to identify areas of weakness and advise accordingly before you file.  For a free review of your case visit www.ccifree.com and we will respond in four hours or less.

Sheila Danzig

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

According to Forbes, about two-thirds of annual H-1B cap-subject visas are awarded to beneficiaries in computer occupations.  As of June 2021, there were over 1 million computer positions actively vacant.  However, H-1B applicants working as computer programmers have been hit the hardest by specialty occupation issues in their petitions.

A few years back, a H-1B visa approval trend emerged wherein occupations that are listed in the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook as normally but not always requiring a bachelor’s degree minimum were adjudicated to not meet the specialty occupation requirement.  H-1B eligibility requirements state that to qualify as a specialty occupation the job must normally require a bachelor’s degree minimum, but USCIS began adjudicating the exception as the norm.

There are three other ways to meet the specialty occupation requirement:

1. The minimum bachelor’s degree requirement is the industry norm for the position in question, or this position is uniquely complex.
2. The H-1B employer always requires a bachelor’s degree minimum for this position.
3. The nature of the job is uniquely complex as to require a bachelor’s degree at minimum.

If the position in question does not ALWAYS require a bachelor’s degree minimum as stated in the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook, you will need to prove that it meets at least one of the three alternatives. 

This will require documentation of past hiring practices and the ad for the job along with ads for the same position for parallel companies that show an unbroken pattern of a minimum bachelor’s degree requirement.  You will also need to provide a detailed breakdown of the duties and responsibilities of the job along with an analysis of how complex skills and knowledge are applied.  Along with this evidence and documentation, provide an expert opinion letter written by an expert in the field of the H-1B job to lend credibility to your case.  This expert should have at least a decade of experience working in the field of the H-1B job, have held leadership roles, and have made hiring decisions regarding the position in question and supporting positions. 

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with experts in every H-1B field that have the credentials and experience required by USCIS to accept their letters as evidence in your case.

For a free review of your case and consultation, visit www.ccifree.com.  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.

Brilliant, highly skilled professionals often take non-traditional pathways through education combining work experience with formal training.  Sometimes all of the education takes place on the job.  The question is, how do you explain this to USCIS in your H-1B visa petition?

The answer is that you must show the US academic value of the work experience.  The way to do this is with a detailed credential evaluation that includes a work experience conversion.  A professor authorized to grant college credit for work experience can convert three years of progressive work experience in the field of the H-1B job into one year of college credit towards that major.  That means twelve years of progressive work experience can be expressed as the academic equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree for USCIS.

What is progressive work experience?  This means periods of employment wherein the H-1B beneficiary can show education took place by virtue of promotions, more responsibility, or that the nature of the work became increasingly complex over time.  These three components show that education occurred on the job, specialized skills were mastered, and specialized knowledge was acquired.

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with professors who are authorized to grant college credit for work experience.  Along with our team of education experts, we write every credential evaluation uniquely to address to job, the education, the work experience, the visa, and USCIS approval trends.  These are the vital elements to writing a successful credential evaluation to effectively communicate the educational value of the beneficiary’s breadth of work experience to USCIS in terms of US academic standards.

For a free review of your case and consultation visit www.ccifree.com.  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.

A successful visa petition takes a team effort.  The beneficiary, the employer, and the immigration lawyer all have important rules to play.  Who is the team member that gets often overlooked but performs many of the vital roles?  The paralegal.

The bones of a successful petition are ensuring the required forms are submitted in order with accurate information, consistent across all forms.  This is the bottom line of any successful petition.  This is not as straightforward as it may seem as different visas require different modes of documentation and assurance.  In the rush to complete a petition and file, especially when rounds of RFEs threaten the employee start date, vital details can get lost.  Paralegals carry a massive amount of responsibility in the petition process.

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work to support visa petition teams by offering free consultations to identify petition weaknesses and advise on how to strengthen these areas.  If a form is missing, or if there are inconsistent answers across multiple forms, we will find it and advise accordingly, taking pressure off of the paralegal, streamlining the process, and helping teams devise a roadmap to visa approval.

Let us work with you 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 for work visas.

At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with difficult RFEs every year.  These are RFEs that call more than one aspect of the petition into question.  On the simple end, it is wage level and specialty occupation rolled into one complicated issue.  On the other end is the Nightmare RFE that is nearly impossible to answer by its own guidelines.

The first step to answering a complex RFE is to read it through with your team, and then put it down and go back to the original H-1B eligibility requirements.  Go back to your case and see which requirements need fortification and who on the team is responsible for providing additional evidence and documentation for this. 

For example, if there are education issues, make sure that the beneficiary’s degree has the US academic value they claim it does.  If the education is from outside of the United States, a credential evaluation is needed to clearly show that its US academic equivalency meets H-1B eligibility requirements, meaning a minimum of a US bachelor’s degree or higher depending on the educational requirements of the job.  If the degree is anything except a US degree in the exact field of the H-1B job, including a three-year degree, or incomplete or missing college, a credential evaluation is needed.  These evaluations must be written to uniquely to fit the job, the education, the visa, and USCIS approval trends, and may require a progressive work experience conversion.

If the issue is specialty occupation or wage level, the employer must provide evidence as to why the duties and responsibilities of this particular job require an advanced degree to perform.  This includes documentation of past hiring practices and hiring practices for the same position in parallel companies within the industry.  With wage level, the employer must clearly show why the wage level was set as it is and that it meets the prevailing wage requirement.  An expert opinion letter written by a professional in the field of the H-1B job with extensive field experience and leadership roles including making hiring decisions regarding this position and supporting positions is needed to overturn this RFE.

Employer-employee relationship issues have become increasingly common.  The employer must show that the employee will have work for the duration of the visa, and that the employer will be able to control this work, even at third-party worksites.  This means including a complete itinerary of the work to be performed by the H-1B employee for the three years of the H-1B visa, including client and customer contact information, and how oversite will work at third-party worksites.

Before you file your RFE response, let our experts at CCI TheDegreePeople.com review your case for free to identify areas of weakness and offer consultation.  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.

If your H-1B petition wasn’t selected for FY2021, you may have another shot.  On June 23, 2021, USCIS announced that it will allow resubmission of certain cap-subject FY2021 petitions before October 1, 2021. 

USCIS stated, “If your FY2021 petition was rejected or administratively closed solely because your petition was based on a registration submitted during the initial registration period but you requested a start day after October 1, 2020, you may re-submit that previously filed petition.” 

Other H-1B petitions not selected in the initial FY2022 lottery may also have a second chance if all H-1B visa slots are not filled by petitions selected in the first lottery.  This means all eligible applicants have the chance to clean up their petition in time to resubmit.

If your petition from FY2021 is eligible, that means you’ve got some work to do.  If the start date was wrong, you need to go over the petition with a keen eye to make sure all answers are accurate and consistent across all documents. 

Go back to the original H-1B eligibility requirements, in light of current USCIS approval trends, and make sure your case clearly shows all of these requirements are met.  That means the employer can control the work of the H-1B employee at all times – even at third-party worksites – with a complete work itinerary for the duration of the visa.  The employee must be making prevailing wages and the factors that went in to setting the wage level must be explained.  The job must clearly meet specialty occupation requirements by one or more of the metrics. 

If the Department of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook states that the job does anything but ALWAYS require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree or higher to perform, an expert opinion letter must be included along with a detailed breakdown of the duties and responsibilities of the job to show that specialized skills and knowledge are required. 

If the H-1B employee does not hold a US degree in the exact field of the H-1B job, include a detailed credential evaluation written uniquely to fit the situation that fills in any gaps between the education the employee has, and the education the employee needs.

The good news is you don’t have to start from scratch to file.  Just be sure that your petition is airtight.  At CCI TheDegreePeople.com we work with difficult RFEs every year and keep an eye on USCIS approval trends. 

Let us review your case for free before you file.  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.