Health Care Blog

• Revoke H-4 / EADauthorization.  This rule was put in byPresident Obama’s administration.  
• Revoke priorGuidance Memoranda that is favorable to the H-1B program.  In fact, he has already started down thispath by revoking a 17 year old memorandum on the approvability of Computer Programmers.
• Increase H-1Bemployer or employee site visits.  Sitevisits are clearly within Presidential authority.  Again, the USCIS has recently released a press release notifying US employers of increased site visits.
• Increaseobtuse/harassing RFEs and NOIDs.  ThePresident has indicated to DHS that it would like to see DHS use all its powerto interpret rules against H-1B users.
• Delay Consularapprovals under a cloak of “background checks”. The President generally has wide latitude to process or delay visaapprovals.

• Extend the amount of time a current H-1B worker may remain in the United States;
• Change the terms of employment for current H-1B workers;
• Amend the H-1B petition to notify the USCIS of the filing of a new LCA and/or geographic change in employment;
• Allow current H-1B workers to change employers; and
• Allow current H-1B workers to work concurrently in a second, contemporaneous part-time H-1B position. 

• Caseswhere USCIS cannot validate the employer’s basic business information throughcommercially available data;
• H-1B-dependentemployers (those who have a high ratio of H-1B workers as compared to U.S.workers, as defined by statute); and 
• Employerspetitioning for H-1B workers who work off-site at another company ororganization’s location.

In 2009, a mere 9,000 H-1Bs were received in the first month of H-1B processing.  It would be 264 days before the H-1B cap was reached.  In 2010, it took 300 days until the H-1B cap was reached.  In 2011, there were 236 days between the April 1, 2011 cap opening and the November 23, 2011 cap being reached.  Not coincidentally, the US employment rate from 2009-2011 ranged between eight and ten percent.

On the other hand, the H-1B cap was reached on the very first day in 2007, 2008, each year since 2013, mirroring the low unemployment rate.

















The lack of H-1B petition filings in years when the unemployment rate is high is compelling evidence against the argument that internationally-trained workers are being used to displace American workers and lower US workers’ salaries.

Why?  Because if H-1B visa labor was being used primarily to lower US workers’ salaries, then H-1B filing numbers would not correlate with US unemployment rates.  If anything, the reverse would happen because the incentive to reduce workers’ salaries is likely greater in a recessed economy, not less.