The US Immigration Office has agreed to qualify a market research analyst as a specialty profession. (file)
Washington:
In a major victory for H-1B employers, a federal court has approved a settlement whereby U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as a specialized occupation for the purposes of determining a foreign professional’s H-1B visa application. Agreed to qualify Market Research Analyst. .
Based on its earlier interpretation of the Occupational Outlook Handbook—a Bureau of Labor Statistics publication profiling hundreds of occupations in the U.S. job market—USCIS was determining that market research analysts did not qualify as “specialty occupations.”
The settlement, approved by a federal district court in the Northern District of California, will now let companies request USCIS to reopen and decide on their declined H-1B petitions.
“This agreement is a significant victory that will benefit hundreds of American businesses and market research analysts,” said Leslie Kay Delon, senior attorney (business immigration) for the American Immigration Council.
“The settlement gives US businesses another chance to have their H-1B market research analyst petitions approved – this time under new guidance worked out by the parties to the lawsuit. Each H-1B petition was reopened and approved by the US. will represent another opportunity for employers and workers they sponsored to further their business objectives,” she said.
The class action lawsuit in this regard was filed by the American Immigration Council, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the law firms Van Der Hout LLP, Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP (formerly Joseph & Hall PC) and Cook Baxter Immigration LLC.
Jeff Joseph, partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP, said the settlement finally resolves an issue immigration lawyers have been grappling with the government for years.
“This agreement strikes the right balance between what the rules actually say and how employers evaluate a candidate’s professional qualifications in the real world. It is our sincere expectation that USCIS will now interpret other specialized occupations from the perspective that actually happens in the free market,” he said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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