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Granting Citizenship and Expanding the H1B Program Can Improve the Economy

Immigration


It is estimated that granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants will generate 1.4 trillion dollars in economic growth and 184 billion dollars in tax revenue.  Within five years of being granted citizenship, undocumented immigrants are estimated to see a 25.1% rise in their annual incomes.  This extra money will ripple through the US economy.  This is because not only is more money going into the pockets of these workers, but also with citizenship they can spend this money freely without concern of it being traced back to its illegal origins.  They can purchase a wider variety of products in the United States, and with their higher incomes, they can purchase more of it.  Not to mention, their incomes could be taxed, and at higher rates than they would have been with 25.1% less annual income.

While granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants will absolutely benefit the US economy in a short amount of time, economists warn that this change ALONE is not enough to create a massive resurgence in the US economy.  However, immigration is the answer in the form of granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants as well as expanding programs that bring highly skilled workers to the United States to work under H1-B visa status for high salaries for the growing STEM industries.  STEM industries are expanding faster than the US workforce can fill the jobs that require highly adept math, science, and engineering skills.  These are the big money industries that the US needs to stay competitive in the international marketplace as well as stimulate economic growth in a struggling economy.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency.  For a no-charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/?CodeBLG or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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Job Description and the Degree Requirement: Is Your Candidate H-1B Qualified?

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


st. If the past several years are any indication of what is to come, you will only have a five-day window to get your client or employee’s petition in the H-1B lottery.

Before you even get started, there are two very important questions about whether or not the job and the employee are H-1B qualified you and your client or employee should be asking:

  1. Is the job itself a specialty occupation?
  2. Is my employee or client educationally qualified for this specialty occupation?

To qualify for H-1B visa status, the job must require a US bachelor’s degree or its equivalent or higher to show that the position requires the employee to possess specialized skills and knowledge to carry out successfully. Mid-sized companies in particular are asked to justify why someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher is required for the job, and you need to show this through evidence and documentation. For example, the ad for the job can be used as proof if it indicates that as a minimum qualification the employee must have a bachelor’s degree or higher. You can also show that similar jobs for similar companies also have these specialized requirements. However, if the job requires a generalized degree – even if it is a bachelor’s degree – you may run into problems because a generalized degree does not indicate that specialized knowledge and skills are required. This is where alternative forms of evidence, like expert opinion letters and examples of similar jobs for similar companies come in particular handy. It is on you to prove that you require a highly skilled employee with a specialized knowledge base to successfully carry out the duties of an H-1B job.

Say you’ve established that your company absolutely needs an employee with a bachelor’s degree or higher and a specialized knowledge base and skill set to carry out the duties of this H-1B position. NOW you need to show that your H-1B candidate is that employee with the required education and specialized knowledge base and skill set. How do you do this? If your candidate has a bachelor’s degree or higher from a US college or university with a major that is an exact fit for their field of employ, it is straightforward. If your candidate has a degree from a different country or with a major in a different field – even if it’s in a related field – from their field of employ, you will need to take one more step to meet this H-1B requirement.

CIS does not accept a three-year degree as the equivalent of a US four-year degree at face value. However, when evaluated for academic course content, an evaluation agency with the authority to convert classroom contact hours into college credit can use this technique to take a close look at your client or employee’s degree and bridge the missing year. An evaluator with the authority to convert years of work experience into college credit can follow the 3-1 rule and convert three years of progressive work experience in the field into one year of college credit. Both of these careful evaluation methods can also be utilized to show specialization in the candidate’s field of employ if they have worked in the field or taken enough classes throughout their college career in that field.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to get started on your employee or client’s H-1B petition. This is US immigration, which means it’s a bundle of details and documentation that often takes time and energy to get in order. If your client or employee needs a credential evaluation to show that they meet CIS educational requirements, start looking for the right credential evaluation agency to meet your needs. The right agency should be able to right an evaluation as unique as your client’s education, and they should have a firm understanding of CIS trends and the different academic requirements for different visas.

About the Author

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI, TheDegreePeople.com, a foreign credentials evaluation agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com or call 800.771.4723.

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What’s Standing Between Your Genius Client or Employee and Their Visa?

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


While sponsoring an employee’s work Visa can cost a company anywhere from $2,500-10,000 in legal fees and USCIS fees, it’s not the money that gets in the way of your genius client or employee obtaining his or her Visa. The fact of the matter is, many of the most brilliant minds followed eclectic or non-traditional educational paths to get to where they are. Common Visas for highly skilled workers – the H-1B Visa and the EB2 Visa – requires a candidates’ degree specializations to be an exact match for their job offers. However, it is common for talented engineers to have earned their degrees in related fields or vastly different fields. Some are largely or completely self-taught and have all of the skills and know-how through solo learning, work experience, and other non-traditional training opportunities.

For these reasons, while companies may jump at the opportunity to take these brilliant minds on to become assets to their companies and to US STEM industries, CIS educational requirements for Visas stand in the way.

Does this mean your client or employee with the specialized skills and knowledge to excel at their job cannot get their Visa because their degree doesn’t match?

Of course not!

A credential evaluator with extensive knowledge and experience with international education complexities, as well as CIS trends and federal case law can take a close look at your client or employee’s educational content and work experience. This way, an equivalency can be written to show that your client or employee has the equivalent of the degree necessary in the specialization necessary to qualify for his or her specialty occupation.

However, different work Visas have different requirements for where these educational equivalencies must come from. For example, if your client or employee is petitioning for an H-1B Visa and has a bachelor’s degree that is not an exact match for their field of employ, but has three years of work experience in the field, their education can be combined with the years of progressive work experience to write an equivalency that their degree is in their field of employ. Work experience and education can be combined to bridge that gap. However, if your client or employee is petitioning for an EB2 Visa and runs into that same problem, the evaluator must handle this differently because the particular Visa requires a single source degree.

Not all evaluation agencies know how to write the evaluation your client or employee needs for his or her particular Visa. When you call in to see if you want to work with any given agency, make sure that they are aware of CIS trends as well as the different educational requirements for different Visas. For example, if you let an agency know that your employee needs an evaluation for an H-1B Visa, they should quickly ask what the job offer is. If they don’t, look elsewhere. You want an evaluation agency that will tailor the evaluation to fit the needs of your client or employee’s unique situation and Visa. In essence, the evaluation must be as complex and unique as the genius it’s written for.

About the Author 

Sheila Danzig

Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com, a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFE, Denial, or NOID, please go to http://www.ccifree.com or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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It’s Easier to Prevent an EB2 RFE than to Overturn One

Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

  • Your education must match the education requirement on the PERM. If your education is not a match, it will trigger an RFE or Denial. If your degree does not match the education requirement, you need a credential evaluation. If your degree is anything other than a straightforward four-year bachelor’s degree from the United States, you need a credential evaluation, and you need to submit it with the rest of your petition and documentation.
    1. Your bachelor’s degree MUST be a single source degree. This is where this first factor can get tricky. With other Visas like the H1B Visa, CIS allows candidates’ evaluators to combine work experience with years of college to equate to a bachelor’s degree. This is NOT the case with EB2, the bachelor’s degree must be from a single source degree. To work around this, you must find an evaluator well-versed in federal case law that allows for using five years of work experience to show equivalence to a US Master’s Degree. At CCI we can do this, and it takes a LOT of research, evidence, and documentation.
    1. Beware of mistranslations. If your transcripts and educational documents needed to be translated into English, the value of your degree may have been inadvertently changed in translation. One common mistranslation is Baccalaureate to Bachelor’s degree, and these degrees are NOT the same. Similarly, the Russian specialist degree is often mistranslated as well. The kandidat naouk is generally the equivalent to a US doctorate, but cannot be TRANSLATED as a doctorate degree.
    John Kersey, international education expert, explains, “In international education, the same term may mean entirely different things. Most bachelor’s degrees in Pakistan, for example, are only two years long and are comparable to a United States associate’s degree, not a bachelor’s degree, which requires three to four years of study. The European Master degree typically represents four years of postsecondary education, and is thus comparable to a United States bachelor’s degree, rather than a Master’s degree, which requires five to six years of postsecondary study.” Some translation firms are now offering evaluation services as well which has compounded the problem. International credential evaluation is highly nuanced and complex, not to mention translation firms do not know the particular degree requirements of each Visa and how that must impact the way the degree is evaluated. The solution? A skilled credential evaluator with expertise in international education can pick up on mistranslations. Be sure to let your evaluator know that your educational documents were translated and find a credential evaluation agency with evaluators who at minimum hold a degree in higher education that includes significant study in international education systems. These evaluators will be able to pick up on mistranslations and have a nuanced understanding of which equivalencies are seen as valid in the eyes of CIS, as well as universities and colleges. Find an evaluation agency with evaluators well-versed in federal case law who can evaluate your work experience into the degree you need to meet the educational requirements on the PERM. Get it right the first time. Don’t make CIS ask again, and don’t give them an excuse to pick your petition apart. These are tricky factors to keep in mind, but now that you know about them, you now have to tools to avoid an RFE. About the Author Sheila Danzig Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.]]>

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    The Top 3 Reasons for Education H1-B RFEs

    Credential Evaluation, Visa Approvals


    Why are there so many education RFEs?

    Reason #1 – The candidate’s education equivalence does not match the job offer.

    Reason #2 – See Reason #1.

    Reason #3 – See Reasons #1 and #2.

    Aren’t there any other reasons CIS would call a candidate’s education into question? Not really. There are small issues where CIS requests additional or more complete education documentation, but 90% of the RFEs are about the education equivalence not matching the title of the job offer. Education RFEs are very common because while employers will hire employees with degrees in related fields, CIS requires an H1-B employee’s degree to be an exact match for their job.

    Many evaluation agencies write standard evaluations of foreign credentials without taking particular Visa requirements, federal case law, and CIS trends into account. In these situations, you will likely have an accurate evaluation, but your degree still will not match your job offer. This is an example of a good evaluator writing the wrong evaluation.

    Well, you might get lucky and slide through, right? So why not just wait for an RFE to submit the education evaluation that CIS wants? Luck HAS worked reasonably well up until just recently. Some petitions did manage to slide by, but in the past two years we started seeing the “Nightmare” RFE begin to increase. If your degree or your degree evaluation does not match your job offer, you will likely run into problems with CIS, and the “Nightmare” RFE is a problem you never want to have to face. This is an extremely complicated RFE that is literally impossible to answer. While no one knows what triggers these particular RFEs, we DO know that they almost always occur when the candidate’s education does not match the job offer.

    Send in a credential evaluation that takes your work experience and course content into account to fill in the gaps between your degree and your job offer before you have to do it the hard way. A simple work experience evaluation can prevent this “Nightmare” experience.

    If it’s too late and you have already received a “Nightmare” RFE – also known as the “Kitchen Sink” RFE because absolutely everything is in it but the kitchen sink – we can help you. While this RFE cannot actually be met as written, we have developed a systematic approach to addressing this RFE that has worked 95% of the time.

    To learn more about the Nightmare RFE, check out my article http://discuss.ilw.com/content.php?4449-Article-You-Can-Beat-The-Nightmare-RFE-for-H1B-By-Sheila-Danzig. You CAN beat the “Nightmare” RFE, but why do it if you don’t have to? Don’t risk this “Nightmare” scenario. Get your credentials evaluated by an evaluation agency with the authority to convert work experience in your field of employ into college credit. Some agencies simply do not write these kinds of evaluations. When you talk to them on the phone, tell them that you need an education evaluation for an H1-B Visa petition. If they don’t ask about your job offer, look elsewhere. You need an evaluator knowledgeable about international education as well as CIS trends.

    About the Author

    Sheila Danzig

    Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.]]>

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    How to Bridge the Fatal Gaps Between Your Degree and Your H1B Job

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals


    If your job offer is for accountancy but your degree is in economics, CIS will raise a red flag. If you have a generalized degree and are hired for any job that meets the specialization standards of an H1B Visa job, CIS will raise a red flag.

    CIS requirements clearly state, “USCIS precedent decisions have confirmed that a generalized degree in business administration, absent specialized experience, is insufficient to qualify an alien beneficiary in a specialty occupation […] a petitioner with a business administration degree must establish a particular area and occupation in the field of business administration in which he is engaged.”

    CIS states, “A generalized degree, absent specialized experience, is insufficient.”

    Does this mean H1B candidates with degrees in fields that don’t exactly match but are related to their field of employ are out of luck? Absolutely not.

    Even though your education alone cannot prove that you have the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to qualify for your H1B job, your education combined with work experience can. Employers hire candidates with related degrees because they have gained the specialized skills and knowledge they need for the job by directly working in the field. To prove specialization with a related or generalized degree, you need an evaluation of your education and work experience from a professor authorized to grant college credit for your work experience. ONLY a professor authorized to do this can write the evaluation you need to get your H1B Visa approved.

    Authorized professors can convert years of progressive work experience into college credit to bridge the gaps between your job and your degree. Your work experience must be in the exact field of you H1B job. To qualify as progressive work experience, the nature of the work must have required you to take on progressively more work and responsibilities representing your progressively growing specialized knowledge base and skill set.

    Don’t wait for an RFE or Denial to get your degree and work experience evaluated. While an RFE or Denial is not the end of the world, it is a big red flag to CIS that will trigger a close scrutiny of your petition. Minor errors and glitches that would have otherwise gone unnoticed will be unearthed because attention has been drawn to your petition. With hundreds of thousands of H1B Visa petitions to mire through, CIS uses red flags to make the hard decision of who gets their Visa approved and who does not for the set amount of annual Visa slots. Make the decision to approve your Visa easy by making your specialized knowledge and skill set clear with a credential evaluation from a professor authorized to convert work experience into college credit.

    About the Author

    Sheila Danzig

    Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800.771.4723. Mention that you saw this in the ILW article and get 72 hour rush service at no charge.

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    The Matter of Shah and Why it Should NOT Matter

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

    What does the Matter of Shah have to do with any of this?

    The decision to this matter, made in 1977, is the most widely cited reason the USCIS and their evaluation board gives for issuing an RFE or rejecting a visa petition outright.  In this decision, it was determined that the candidate, who held a three-year Indian bachelor’s degree with chemistry as a special subject from Gujarat University and a two-year MBA from the University of Detroit was not academically qualified for a job in the United States as a chemist.  The candidate had never been employed in the field of chemistry, which also weighed into the decision in the Matter of Shah.

    To this day – almost 40 years later – this decision is given as grounds to bar countless qualified candidates from the visas they deserve based on a three-year degree not being equivalent to a US four-year degree.  Is this decision solid grounds for denial?

    No.  Here is why:

    First, the board that made the decision in the Matter of Shah never actually made a complete analysis of the candidate’s education.  The decision was based on analysis of just the second year of the candidate’s three-year undergraduate transcripts.  With only one year to consider, the board had no way of discerning the actual academic content of the candidate’s degree.  That would require looking at the total number of classroom contact hours and academic rigor of all three years of the candidate’s undergraduate study.  This means that they actual academic value of the candidate’s education was never actually taken into accurate consideration in this decision.  In the verbatim of the board’s decision, it was even stated that a US four-year bachelor’s degree requires “usually” four years of study.  “Usually” means that sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less.  The US four-year degree requires a minimum of 1800 classroom contact hours to graduate.

    Former Professor of Physics at the University of Mumbai, Gulab Vaswani reports, “Every three-year bachelor’s degree program in India has more than 2000 contact hours with some having more than 3000.”

    At the same time, the board never analyzed the proportion of the candidate’s study devoted to chemistry.  Therefore, the decision that the candidate did not meet the academic qualifications for the job of chemist was also misinformed.

    Which leads right into the second reason the Matter of Shah should not matter.

    The candidate had earned a three-year degree from an accredited university with chemistry as a special subject.  The word “Special” was never determined in the board’s decision.  Credential evaluators across the country have found time and again that a “special” subject in an Indian three-year degree is the academic equivalent of a “major” subject in a US four-year degree.  This means that the special subject has equal to or more credit hours than that same subject as a major in a US four-year undergraduate program.  Therefore, the candidate did in fact major in chemistry in the Matter of Shah.

    Even though the board did not recognize the value of the candidate’s undergraduate degree, the University of Detroit certainly did.  In fact, the university admitted the candidate into their MBA program based on the three-year Indian bachelor’s degree being the equivalent of the US four-year bachelor’s degree necessary to gain entrance into that very program.  The fact that the candidate went on to successfully complete the two-year MBA program goes to show that the Indian three-year degree with chemistry as a special subject really did qualify the candidate for the graduate program.

    Finally, the last reason I will go into for why the Matter of Shah should not be grounds for denying anyone’s visa is that in making the decision, the board overturned a previous ruling.  This ruling was made by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and can be found in Appendix 5-F, pages 34-37 of the Immigrant Inspector’s Handbook.  In this ruling, the department stated that a B.S. degree in chemistry from the candidate’s university, Gujarat University, is the equivalent of a United States B.S. degree.

    The Matter of Shah has its foundation in four errors:

    1. Incomplete evaluation of the academic content of the candidate’s degree.
    2. Failing to translate the term “Special” into US academic context.
    3. Ignoring the University of Detroit’s decision to admit the candidate into their graduate program based on the academic value of the candidate’s three-year Indian bachelor’s degree, as well as the candidate’s successful completion of the MBA.
    4. Overturning a previous ruling that determined that the candidate’s exact degree was the equivalent of a US four-year bachelor’s degree.

    The Matter of Shah should not serve as a roadblock to Visa approval.  Unfortunately, almost forty years later, it still does.  If your client or employee received an RFE about their three-year bachelor’s degree, you need to provide a credential evaluation that includes a refutation of the Matter of Shah.  As you can see, refuting the Matter of Shah as grounds for a decision about the value of a three-year Indian bachelor’s degree or specialization is not difficult to do in a credential evaluation.  However, the evaluator you select must be well versed in USCIS and immigration precedents, and be able to provide the documentation that highlights these points of refutation.

    About the Author 

    Sheila Danzig

    Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency.  For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com/ or call 800 771 4723

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    The H1B Nicknamed the Genius Visa H1B Visa Program Keeps US STEM Industries from Collapse

    Credential Evaluation, Immigration, Visa Approvals

    Nicknamed the “Genius Visa,” holding an H1B visa enables foreign nationals with advanced degrees to live and work in the United States for up to six years. This Visa ensures that they get prevailing industry wages and benefits, and that the companies that hire H1B visa holders can take on these new hires without cutting into the wages and benefits of other employees. This Visa offers a unique opportunity for highly skilled workers to live and work in the United States long-term, with their families. It is a Visa of dual-intent, so while it is a non-immigrant Visa, H1B Visa holders can choose to pursue pathways to citizenship.

    About 70% of all H1B Visas go to workers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) industries. Why is this?

    “Science is the engine of prosperity,” Dr. Kaku explains. “The United States has the worst educational system known to science.”

    Students in the United States are not graduating high school or even college with the math and science skills necessary to fill the growing number of high tech jobs in places like Silicon Valley. According to Dr. Kaku, Silicon Valley would not even exist without the H1B Visa program because people coming to the United States to work on these Visas fill the positions that create entire STEM industries. Wall Street Journal agrees that when it comes to the highest level jobs at the highest level technology companies, Americans simply are not qualified. H1B workers are needed to create jobs for US citizens in these same industries because high-level jobs are necessary to create lower-tiered jobs in the industry through which US citizens can develop expertise through industry experience. Without a doubt, the “genius visa” is the secret ingredient that keeps STEM industries in the United States from collapsing.

    While it may come as a surprise to some that Silicon Valleys are popping up in countries like China and India, it actually makes all the sense in the world because these are the countries that the top-level Silicon Valley engineers and developers are coming from. School systems in these countries cultivate strong scientific minds, and the United States attracts them with the H1B Visa program.

    STEM industries aren’t the only fields attracting foreign geniuses. Dr. Kaku reports that 50% of all PhD candidates in the United States are foreign born, building the backbone of graduate programs in the country. Without the H1B visa program, 50% of all PhD candidates in the United States simply would not exist.

    To qualify for H1B Visa status, a candidate must hold an advanced degree in a specialized field. That means having earned a bachelor’s degree or higher in a specialized field that matches their field of employ. While this sounds straightforward, variance of academic structures across borders muddles the value of any given degree. H1B Visa candidates are running into trouble getting their Visas approved because employers understand the value of their foreign education, but the USICS needs the value clearly articulated in terms of US educational standards. Candidates with three-year bachelor’s degrees in particular are running into trouble. When a candidate files his or her H1B Visa petition, an evaluation of their foreign degree must be included.

    “Credential evaluation is a highly specialized process,” explains International Education expert and credential evaluator Sheila Danzig. “When we evaluate foreign credentials for US equivalence, we have to take classroom contact hours, USCIS and other legal precedents, university admissions decisions, and documented investigations into foreign education equivalencies into account to clearly spell out the value of your education.”

    Dr. Kaku’s and the Wall Street Journal’s observations about the state of the US educational system are clearly reflected in the demographics of high-level tech jobs. All the same, the H1B Visa program requires candidates to prove their genius to their employers and graduate programs, as well as the bureaucracies that approve their visas.

    About the Author  

    Sheila Danzig

    Sheila Danzig is the Executive Director of CCI TheDegreePeople.com a Foreign Credentials Evaluation Agency. For a no charge analysis of any difficult case, RFEs, Denials, or NOIDs, please go to http://www.ccifree.com or call 800.771.4723.]]>

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