AILA's Comment on DOL's Backlog Reduction Regulation- Part1
American Immigration Lawyers Association
________________________________________________
918 F Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20004 (202) 216-2400
August 19, 2004
Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Administration
USDOL
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Room C-4312
Washington DC 20210
Attention: William Carlson
Chief, Division of Foreign Labor Certification
Via email:
blrcomments@dol.gov
Re: RIN 1205-AB37; Comments to Interim Final Rule, Labor Certification for the Permanent Employment of Aliens in the United States; Backlog Reduction, 69 Fed. Reg. 43715 (7/21/04)
Dear Mr. Carlson:
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) submits this comment in response to the interim final rule published July 21, 2004 regarding the establishment of centralized processing centers for the purpose of reducing existing backlogs in permanent alien labor certification applications.
AILA is a voluntary bar association of more than 8,600 attorneys and law professors practicing and teaching in the field of immigration and nationality law. AILA's mission includes the advancement of the law pertaining to immigration and naturalization and the facilitation of justice in the field. AILA's members are well acquainted with the labor certification process, having significant experience representing and educating employers who have need of essential international personnel and the employees who meet those needs. The members of our association represent large and small businesses, academic institutions, research facilities and governmental entities that employ foreign nationals as well as U.S. workers. AILA is thus uniquely qualified to comment on DOL's proposed rule.
The Backlog Reduction Concept
AILA commends the Department for its commitment to implement a workable plan to reduce the national backlog of approximately 300,000 applications for alien labor certification. By expressly providing for the use of centralized processing centers to perform the functions of both the SWAs and the regional offices, USDOL hopes "to achieve efficiencies and economies of scale" and, at the same time, achieve a greater consistency in the processing of these applications and in the legal standards applied to these applications.
AILA wishes to emphasize its willingness to work with USDOL on the program's implementation, particularly in connection with identifying priorities and rolling out the program in accordance with stated goals.
Approaching Backlog Reduction
AILA has a number of questions about the new centralized processing centers and how applications will be processed at the centers - - particularly the manner in which the centers will process the numerous applications that will be received from the state offices (SWAs) and the regional offices of USDOL. Our concerns are in the areas of customer service, staff training, application processing, center operations, and selection of applications for processing. Central among these concerns is the fundamental fairness of the methodology used to select those applications to be processed at the centers.
A great part of customer service involves managing the expectations of users of the system and making users aware of the process. In this way, the user may rely on that knowledge to approach the process with confidence and authority. In the first instance, this means that employers and their representatives must know whether their application was selected for centralized processing and when the application was transferred to a centralized processing center. For this reason, employers - - and, where they are represented by counsel, their attorneys - - must immediately be given notice of an application's transfer from a SWA or regional office to a centralized processing center. Such notice should be provided by the transferring office at the time of the transfer or by the centralized processing center immediately on receipt of the application for processing.
Additionally, DOL should make its best efforts to make information available to users that explains the anticipated operations and staffing levels of the centralized processing centers. For example:
What kind of staffing will the facility have? We know there will be some combination of a USDOL regional office presence with the contractor's staff. How many individuals will be staffing the facility? What will their functions be? Will they work in teams, product lines, etc? Will certain groups handle only RIR applications? Will others handle only advertising?
How will staff members be assigned cases?
Will they have specific case production goals per day, week, month?
Will there be telephonic access by customers to staff members who are working on particular cases?
Will there be access to supervisory personnel by customers when issues arise?
Of critical importance will be staff training. The most pressing unanswered questions include how staff training will be accomplished, who will be doing the training, who will be developing training materials, and how long a training program is contemplated to last. The Labor Certification process has always had it complexities, and the practice has become even more complicated in recent years as we must now understand the legal framework connecting not only the DOL regulations and the Technical Assistance Guide, but also various General Administration Letters and Training and Employment Guidance Letters, decisions of the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals, national office guidance, as well as varying interpretations of the once ten, and now six, certifying officers.
Ordering Backlog Reduction
Having experienced the significant hardships created for employers and employees by the ever-increasing delays in the processing of labor certification applications, we are all faced with the extremely difficult issue of determining the methodology for the identification of applications to be forwarded to the centralized processing centers. Because the regulation leaves unanswered the question as to which applications will be selected for centralized processing, a fair and just way must be found to offer relief to those who have been most adversely affected by the extreme delays.
With respect to variations of processing times, no methodology will completely eliminate the unfairness that marks current labor certification processing. But whatever methodology is used, the oldest cases should be processed first - - regardless of location in a SWA or regional office - - without compromising the viability or timeliness of the RIR and Special Handling programs as they currently function. The Department should strive for a "first in, first out" approach to backlog reduction within the outline of the priorities regarding types of cases already established through guidance and practice. Assuming the SWAs and the regions will continue processing applications, it is inevitable that disparities in processing times will result from the varying speeds with which all of the concerned offices are able to process those applications in their remaining caseloads. Additionally, continued funding of the SWAs and regional offices (or lack of funding for these offices) will undoubtedly impact the ability of these offices to continue to process those applications that remain. By following the date order to the closest extent possible, the affected community can maintain a reasonable expectation that the most egregious backlogs will be addressed first.
A further issue is the need for equitable application of some standard criteria to these applications, which may have been filed at any one of the more than fifty SWAs at any time during a five-year period. The standards applied to labor certification applications are deceptively simple: the regulations call for certification once an employer has proven that there are no US workers able, willing, and qualified for the position. However, the steps an employer must take to make that showing have changed significantly over the years that are now marked by thousands of pending applications. The centralized processing centers may be considering applications filed under any number of interpretive memos and guidance letters-the "Norris memo", the "Ziegler memos", the "Carlson memo," RIR guidelines, non-RIR standards, GALs, and TEGLs. It is almost impossible to apply the standard that was in place at the time of filing to many of the applications that will be considered by the centralized processing center. And yet some equitable standard that will involve examining the extent and good faith of the employer's effort to recruit US workers must be applied. Employers should not be penalized by adverse action on their applications at the centralized processing centers in situations where the employers have followed the policies of their regional certifying officer. While future goals for the processing of permanent applications may offer opportunities for improved consistency throughout the United States, it is important that DOL recognizes employers' reliance on regional practice.
