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The
national Foreign Labor Certification Division of the
Department of Labor (DOL) had a meeting with lawyers
representing the American Immigration Lawyers Association
(AILA) last week in San Francisco. Among the topics
discussed was a solution to the large number of high tech
cases remanded by DOL in the region covering California
(Region VI) to the Employment Development Department (EDD) in
Sacramento. Over the last couple of months, several
hundred alien employment certifications filed under RIR with
EDD and other state employment offices within Region VI for
high tech positions, have been remanded by DOL to EDD. The
effect of this is that not only will EDD be even more
backlogged than it already is but these cases may sit on
the shelves at EDD for several years before they are processed
under “supervised recruitment”.
Bill
Carlson (Chief, Foreign Labor Certification Unit) and Harry
Sheinfeld (Litigation Counsel, Employment and Training Legal
Services) of the DOL national office went to San Francisco to
meet with Region VI Certifying Officer Martin Rios and his
staff. Mr. Carlson and Mr. Sheinfeld also asked to meet with
AILA representatives to discuss the issues. On the AILA side,
the meeting was attended by both National and Region VI
AILA/DOL committee members. On the DOL side, Mr. Carlson and
Mr. Sheinfeld attended along with Regional Administrator
Armando Quiroz (Regional Administrator for Region VI) and John
Humphrey (Regional Director, Pacific-Western Region). The
meeting was hosted by Jackson & Hertogs’ office. Norman
Plotkin is on the National AILA DOL liaison committee and also
is a co-Chair for the Northern California Chapters liaison to
Region VI.
After
much discussion, the AILA representatives prepared a written
summary of the proposals and presented them to DOL. The
proposals include:
(a) an immediate freeze on RIR remands until a
resolution is reached on processing criteria;
(b) for cases currently pending at DOL:
- DOL would adjudicate non-entry level
positions according to standards that existed at the
time of filing;
- if a job appears to be entry level, DOL
would offer the employer an opportunity to provide
supplemental evidence showing the position's trueduties and
requirements;
- if specific recruitment evidence exists,
the employer could provide such information;
- if specific recruitment evidence does
not exist, the employer would be permitted to retest the
market with the specific position requirement;
- for cases already remanded to the SWA,
employers may request reconsideration and re-
- adjudication based on the above
standards.
This
of course was AILA's proposal and we are not sure whether DOL
will put a freeze on the remands and/or adopt any of the other
proposals made by AILA. We will keep you updated on any future
developments regarding DOL policies. | 
