Hello Pork & all

K

kaa

Registered Users (C)
Hello Pork & all,
It has been more then 370 days since my I-485 is filed in NSC. I am preparing for AC-21 law to change my employer. On my labor certification my employer mentioned salary $92,500 and Title ‘Project Engineer’
But my new employer is having a title for me ‘System Analyst’ and salary will in the range of 45000 – 50,000. I talked to my attorney he said if new employer is ready to your next petitioner then no problem. He did not say anything about salary & title. My new employer is State Government.

Since there is a huge difference in salary or title will that be a problem?

I would appreciate your response.

Thanks
Kaa
 
AC-21 requires that your salary should be equal to or more than the "prevalent wage" that was mentioned in your labor certifcation, which formed the basis for your EB immigration petition (i140). similarly, the job duties should be as exact a match of the duties set forth in the LC. one would think that the job title is a trifle less important than the actual job duties, but of consequence nevertheless, in that it should not suggest a radically different nature of job.

your reduced salary should be ok if it is greater than or equal to the LC prevalent wage, but you may be looking at a bit of an uphill task convincing a BCIS adjudicator that your jobs match. also considering that your new employer is a state government, it is unlikely that they will "massage" your job description a bit in your employment letter in case of an RFE.

if your lawyer is not taking this into consideration, then i do suggest that you get a second legal opinion. if you know of a good lawyer, by all means consult them. otherwise, sheela murhty (www.murthy.com) and carl shusterman (www.shusterman.com) are considered experts in AC-21 cases. you could also contact jim mills (www.jdmillsesq.com) or rajiv khanna.

good luck!
 
Originally posted by Pork Chop
AC-21 requires that your salary should be equal to or more than the "prevalent wage" that was mentioned in your labor certifcation
Click to expand...

I actually talked to Sheila Murthy one time regarding this very subject. What she told me was that job responsiblity should be similar, but as long as the salary is over the poverty guideline, you should be fine. See the 485 portability board regarding this (we had a long disucussion regarding this few months back).
 
good posts by hbt2002 and linuxrox.

the fact remains that invocation of AC-21 is fraught with peril. this is primarily due to the fact that the BCIS has still not issued its implementation guidelines for AC-21. in the resulting void, various BCIS centers are exercising their own interpretations of AC-21.

for instance, after invocation of AC-21, one's new employer becomes the owner of one's approved i140 after 180 days, and therefore, theoretically at least, the i140 is protected from the previous employer. and yet, as jim mills points out, sheela murthy has experienced i485 denials due to the "revocation" of their underlying i140s by the previous employers.

similarly, AC-21 does not specifically state that it requires one to be ever employed by the original sponsor of one's i140, let alone be employed for 180 days or over; indeed, the whole EB GC process does not require one to be employed with one's sponsoring employer until after the GC is approved, inasmuch as the GC is predicated on the availability of a "future job". yet, the california service center is issuing RFEs that require applicants to prove that they have actually worked for their original sponsoring employers for at least 180 days before they changed jobs and invoked AC-21, which seems to fly in the face of not only the AC-21 law, but the whole current EB immigration paradigm.

the other indisputable fact is, THEY have the power to decide. so, for us, the rule of thumb should be: use AC-21 only if you have to, for example, in case of an involuntary loss of employment. in the pre-AC-21 days, termination would effectively have meant the end of one's GC aspirations; now, AC-21 offers a ray of hope. also, in case of a layoff, an employer would hopefully have a lesser predilection for attemting to revoke a laid-off employee's i140.

if the current immigration scene were a medieval map, AC-21 would have "here be dragons" emblazoned upon it. if you are changing employers when you don't absolutely have to, you would be well advised to remain where you are (and lie back and enjoy ;) )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top