The International Business Law Firm PC

Category: Business Immigration

  • TPS Designation for HAITI!

    A man in suit and tie holding a microphone.

    On May 26, 2021, the USCIS Public Engagement Division recently sent its email stating:

    On May 22, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced a new 18-month designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti. The effective date will be the date of publication of an upcoming Federal Register notice (FRN). This new TPS designation will enable Haitian nationals (and individuals without nationality who last resided in Haiti) residing in the United States as of May 21, 2021, to file initial applications for TPS, so long as they meet eligibility requirements.

    More info at Temporary Protected Status | USCIS

    Because TPS applications have a deadline for application, it is recommended that any HAITIAN Foreign National who believes they may be eligible contact an attorney or law firm to be ready to file when the application period opens.

  • H-1B Statutes Are Carefully Crafted to Be Misleading to the Casual Reader

    The H-1B statutes are lobbyist-written and carefully crafted to be misleading to the casual reader. The “prevailing wage” is one area where there has been great confusion; in particular H-1B wage levels. The H-1B wage or skill levels are entirely a bureaucratic creation that have no relation to the job market.

    The article published in the journal The Immigration Post, mentioned that the source of the H-1B Wage Levels is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics (OES). The BLS puts out a wage survey every May. The OES survey gives by occupation and location the average salary, the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentile wages. The 50th percentile (median) is what normal people call “the prevailing wage”. In fact, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) regulations required it (or the mean if the median is not available).

    The State of Utah has had a contract for decades to manage foreign labor certification data. Until 2004 and apparently without any statutory authority, they had been taking the OES survey and then interpolating the data to create approximations of the 17th and 66th percentile wages and putting them out as a high and low prevailing wages.

    Employers were routinely using the 17th percentile wage supplied by this website and claiming it was the “prevailing wage” in H-1B labor condition applications (LCAs) even though this did not meet the requirements under regulation for a prevailing wage.

    However, the Department of Labor is required to approve all H-1B LCAs within 14 days as long as the form is filled out correctly, so employers can put down nearly anything as the prevailing wage and get it approved. The Utah system provided an extremely low wage that had the appearance of being government-approved even if it was not lawful.

    In 2004 Congress enacted 8 U.S.C. § 1182(p):

    4) Where the Secretary of Labor uses, or makes available to employers, a governmental survey to determine the prevailing wage, such survey shall provide at least 4 levels of wages commensurate with experience, education, and the level of supervision. Where an existing government survey has only 2 levels, 2 intermediate levels may be created by dividing by 3, the difference between the 2 levels offered, adding the quotient thus obtained to the first level and subtracting that quotient from the second level.

    By Center for Immigration Studies

  • EB-5 Q&A: What qualifies as an EB-5 troubled business?

    Answer:

    A troubled business is defined as a business that has been in existence for at least two years, has incurred a net loss for accounting purposes during the twelve-or twenty-four month period prior to the priority date on the foreign investor’s I-526, and the loss for such period is at least equal to twenty percent of the troubled business’s net worth prior to such loss. You may present your business tax returns, accounting records to show the qualification. In the case of a troubled business, 10 jobs must be preserved, created, or some combination of the two. This means if you currently have 8 full time employee, the new investment need to create additional 2.