Salary Req. AM I SAFE. PLEASE RESPOND.

[180member]

Hi All,

From attorney Murthy's latest Q&A, I came to know that INS changed
their view on Salary requirements. I changed Job with 25k diffeerence
from LC and got a future employment offer letter with same title,
description and LC matching my original LC. Please see
the following posted in the forum and please let me know your
comments on my case.

Current salary <25K from salary on LC and previous previous Job.
Future employment offer exactly matches word to word with Original LC (Title, Description, Salary.)

Posting from Attorney Murthy's forum:

Chat User : I applied for I-485 in March 2002 (7 months back). Will I
have any problems with my I-485 approval if I lose my job right now?

Attorney Murthy : Well, it depends on what kind of new job you obtain
since the law requires that the new job be in the same or similar
occupational classification. If the new job is considered different,
then it will cause problems since the INS has the right, by law, to
deny the I-485. Also, they seem to have introduced a new requirement
about the salary matching the LC salary, which contradicts their
earlier position on this issue.


PLEASE RESPOND.


Regards.

 

[TheRealCanadian]

Because AC21 does not have implementing regulations out yet, no one can say for sure how things are going to shake out. However, so far the INS has been pretty reasonable.

While you do not need to be making the wage on your Labor Cert, the INS has been instructed to use the wage offered as a means of determining if the job is truly similar. Clearly, if your duties are similar but the wage is $25,000 less (or more), it would be reasonable to wonder if the job is truly similar.

ISD (part of the INS HQ that sets policy) has been stating that you must make at least the amount on the Labor Cert. This isn't backed up by anything (regulation or memorandum) and I am not sure if it is defensible. Clearly, "similar" would imply that you could make less, provided it was more than the prevailing wage for the occuption. We'll see.

I am not an attorney nor an INS ajudicator, but if I was I might question the $25,000 pay cut. That being said, I am using AC21 and am taking a $2,500 pay cut so we'll see.