USCIS to Consider Accepting Pending Labor Condition Application for H-1B Filings

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)  Ombudsman recently recommended that USCIS begin accepting H-1B applications with pending Labor Condition Applications, or LCA’s.  Normally, the LCA, the document initially filed with Dept. of Labor (DOL) prior to submission of the H-1B petition , must be certified first.  The certification process used to be instantaneous- as easy as a click of a mouse.  But DOL, in its infinite wisdom, decided to scrap this system that worked so efficiently.  In July of this year, DOL rolled out a new LCA process, and now each LCA is reviewed manually.  Getting an LCA certified has now become a mini-nightmare in most cases, resulting sometimes in delays of several weeks and erroneous denials from DOL.  The fact that we’ll now be able to file the H-1B petition without first needing to certify the LCA is somewhat of a positive development, although it does guarantee that USCIS will issue a request for the certified LCA before approving the petition, and they will likely use that as an opportunity to request other additional evidence.

Tags: DOL, H-1B, iCert, Labor Condition Application, LCA, LCA certification, USCIS, USCIS ombudsman
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