For over a month, the Region VI Department of Labor has been remanding "high tech" reduction in recruitment labor certification applications to the State Workforce Agencies for regular processing without first giving employers the opporutnity to retest the labor market. This process has been dubbed the "auto-remand." The Certifying Officer for Region VI, Martin Rios, told AILA Liaison in a recent teleconference that virtually all high tech RIR cases filed during the period of August/September of 2001 through calendar year 2002 will be remanded. (The official minutes for that meeting will be distributed as soon as they are approved by DOL.) In June, 1,400 such cases were remanded to the Employment Development Department. As many as
10,000 additional cases are likely to be remanded over the coming months if the current policy persists. It will take approximately 4.5 to 5.5 years for the remanded cases to be processed by EDD under normal processing.
Mr. Rios attended a national conference of Certifying Officers in late May at which the COs were told that they had the discretion to deny the RIR aspect of a labor certification if they believed that U.S. workers were
available at the time of the initial filing of the labor certification. The "auto-remand" policy is based Mr. Rios' belief that in late 2001 and throughout 2002 technology-based companies in the region were downsizing.
Mr. Rios has agreed to discuss the auto-remand policy in a future teleconference with AILA DOL Liaison and a representative from the National DOL office.
In the upcoming teleconference with Mr. Rios and the National DOL representative, AILA DOL Liaison will contest the auto-remand policy on the grounds that the process eliminates individualized review of RIR labor
certifications. Since each case varies greatly from one to another, denying all cases for the same reason without some individualized review of the facts is patently arbitrary. This is an important issue for our
members' business immigration clients. Therefore, we are seeking the assistance of the membership in lobbying the National DOL to soften the auto-remand policy.
10,000 additional cases are likely to be remanded over the coming months if the current policy persists. It will take approximately 4.5 to 5.5 years for the remanded cases to be processed by EDD under normal processing.
Mr. Rios attended a national conference of Certifying Officers in late May at which the COs were told that they had the discretion to deny the RIR aspect of a labor certification if they believed that U.S. workers were
available at the time of the initial filing of the labor certification. The "auto-remand" policy is based Mr. Rios' belief that in late 2001 and throughout 2002 technology-based companies in the region were downsizing.
Mr. Rios has agreed to discuss the auto-remand policy in a future teleconference with AILA DOL Liaison and a representative from the National DOL office.
In the upcoming teleconference with Mr. Rios and the National DOL representative, AILA DOL Liaison will contest the auto-remand policy on the grounds that the process eliminates individualized review of RIR labor
certifications. Since each case varies greatly from one to another, denying all cases for the same reason without some individualized review of the facts is patently arbitrary. This is an important issue for our
members' business immigration clients. Therefore, we are seeking the assistance of the membership in lobbying the National DOL to soften the auto-remand policy.
. This current DOL trend will surely turn away quite a few people from the silicon valley. But I guess that's DOL's goal, isn't it