Visas thru job sponsorship-OC california

US Immigration law recognizes the value of permitting limited categories of employees to emigrate to the United State on an annual basis. These 'preferred' foreign workers are known as employment based immigrants and are subdivided into five distinct preferences.

There are five preference categories in total which literally list the workers eligible for permanent residence in order of preference. These five categories can be seen by clicking here

With a few limited exceptions, the foreign worker must be offered a full time position by a US based employer. Unless the foreign worker falls within the first employment based preference (i.e. he is of extraordinary ability, an outstanding researcher or professor, or an intra company transferee) or has ibtianed a national interest waiver, the foreign worker must obtain labor certification.

It must also be noted that certain professions such as Registered nurses are exempt form the usual labor certification process due to the fact that they have deemed 'pre-certified' due to a recognized national shortage of nurses in the US.

The Labor Certification Process is a test of the U.S. market to determine whether U.S. workers are available to fill a particular occupation which a company would like to fill with a foreign worker on a permanent basis.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has created two main categories of labor certification processing. The category that was most frequently used until about two years ago, was the "conventional" labor certification that began with filing of the basic applications with a state agency and was followed by recruitment efforts that were closely scrutinized. In time, this process became so horribly backlogged that DOL devised an alternative scheme called Reduction-in-Recruitment. This procedure has become increasingly popular because it streamlines the process and applicants find their processing time considerably lessened.

CONVENTIONAL LABOR CERTIFICATION APPLICATIONS

The labor certification process begins with the preparation of forms describing the job being offered and the qualifications of the foreigner. These forms are sent to the local State Workfare Agency (SWA). In specific, these forms must contain a statement of the wage rate (which according to the law must be the prevailing wage for the geographical area), and the minimum requirements of the employer for that particular position. After SWA. reviews the applications they contact the employer and either request amendments or advise that it is time to advertise the position to see if U.S. workers are available.

The advertisements are either placed in a national publication or in a local newspaper. The decision where to place the advertisement is normally made by SWA The publication where the advertisement will run is supposed to be one where it will best attract U.S. workers.

SAW requires that applicants contact their office if individuals are interested in applying for the particular occupation. SWA will then send the employer the names and resumes of these individuals for purposes of arranging an interview. The employer is expected to interview those individuals who seem qualified.

At the end of the recruitment period, SWA. will ask the employer to summarize the results of their recruitment effort. The results are summarized in a letter accompanied by documentation of the efforts of the employer to recruit U.S. workers. SWA. then forwards this information to the Department of Labor for evaluation to determine whether the labor certification will be approved.

If the Department of Labor determines that no U.S. workers are available to fill the particular occupation based upon fair recruitment efforts and the proper disqualification of all U.S. applicants, they will approve the labor certification application.

The Department of Labor may deny a labor certification if they find the recruitment efforts were unfair or that U.S. workers were disqualified for reasons that were not objective or did not meet the good faith requirements of the law.

The labor certification process is quite often successful despite the difficulty of the procedure. Once the labor certification is approved, the alien is then entitled to file an immigrant visa petition to establish his/her qualifications for the position being offered along with financial documents of the sponsoring Company to evidence ability to pay the prevailing wage. If the visa petition is approved, the applicant is then qualified to file an application for permanent resident status.

The labor certification is the fundamental building block on which many individuals obtain permanent residence through job offers.

It is currently a slow process that may take as long as 2.5 plus years to complete. The exact time depends upon the backlogs of the local SWA, Department of Labor, and processing times at USCIS.

REDUCTION-IN-RECRUITMENT

Due to the backlogs in the labor certification process the Department of Labor announced a program where they would review the recruitment efforts of an employer in the particular job category that is the subject of the labor certification application during the immediately preceding six-month period. This process is called "reduction-in-recruitment" and DOL will approve such cases if they are satisfied that the recruitment effort has been genuine and that a shortage of U.S. workers qualified for the position has been established.

The process begins with a series of advertisements placed in the local or national newspaper to recruit U.S. workers to fill a position that will be the subject of the labor certification application. DOL is looking for a "pattern of recruitment, which may vary among employers, depending upon the media normally used for their recruitment effort. DOL will normally accept written advertisements, internet posting, headhunter recruitment, campus recruitment, etc. as proof that the employer has established a pattern of recruitment during the applicable six-month period prior to filing.

The recruitment effort is summarized and traditional labor certification applications are filed at the end of the recruitment period (rather than at the beginning as in the "conventional" process).

The focus of DOL at this time is upon the establishment of a pattern of recruitment. There seems to be much less scrutiny of the applicant pool than in the "conventional" process, which means that DOL is less concerned with explanations of why U.S. worker were found unqualified. This makes the process very attractive at the moment, although we do not know whether this particular trend will continue into the future or be modified to more closely resemble the "conventional" process.

The RIR procedure can reduce the decision making time on a labor certification from years to 6-15 months (depending upon the area of the country and current backlogs at the DOL). If advertising has been extensive for the position, or your Company is willing to advertise for the position being offered to the foreign worker over the next six-month period, than this is a good alternative procedure to the "conventional" labor certification process described above.

A new program, known as PERM or 'Program Electronic Review Management' has been announced which when implemented will revolutionize the labor certification process and hopefully make lengthy delays a thing of the past.