Lawsuit filed challenging arbitrary rejections of H-1B petitions for not having October 1st as the start date.

March 12, 2021
×Close
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of seven U.S. employers whose H-1B petitions have been unlawfully rejected, challenges U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) arbitrary and capricious refusal to accept timely and properly filed H-1B petitions which are subject to the annual statutory cap on H-1B visa numbers allocated each year. USCIS arbitrarily rejected H-1B petitions filed after October 1 simply because the H-1B worker’s intended employment start date—naturally—also fell after October 1. Based on this timeline, USCIS created an absurd choice: foreign workers needed to start on October 1 (and not a day later), or the U.S. employer had to misrepresent the intended employment start-date by “back-dating” the petition. USCIS has not rejected these petitions across the board—some with an employment start date after October 1 have been accepted without issue. There is no law, regulation or form instruction that require an employer to specify only an October 1 start date in the H-1B petition. The lawsuit was filed in the federal district court for the District of Massachusetts by the American Immigration Council, and the law firms Mintz Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, PC; Joseph & Hall, PC; Meyner and Landis LLP; Barnes & Thornburg LLP; and Driggs Immigration Law. [reported by AIC]
Upcoming Webinars
VIEW ALL

Related News

VIEW ALL
Texas Service Center to Begin Processing Form I-129 for L Visas

On February 12, 2018, the Texas Service Center (TSC) will begin processing certain Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker petitions for L nonimmigrant classification, also known as L visas. The TSC will share this workload with the California Service Center to balance workloads and to provide flexibility as USCIS works towards improving processing times […]

Class Action Lawsuit Seeks to Challenge USCIS’ Unlawful Denial of H-1B Petitions Filed by American Businesses

The American Immigration Council, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the law firms Van Der Hout, LLP, Joseph & Hall P.C., and Kuck Baxter Immigration LLC filed a nationwide class action lawsuit today challenging U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ pattern and practice of arbitrarily denying H-1B nonimmigrant employment-based petitions for market research analysts positions filed […]

Controversial USCIS Memo Draws Major H-1B Lawsuit

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a controversial memo designed to make it difficult (some say “impossible”) for professionals in H-1B status to provide services at the site of their employer’s customers.