October 16, 2018:
The technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
A Law Suit has been filed by an IT advocacy group representing more than 1,000 small IT companies mostly run by Indian-Americans against the US immigration agency for issuing H-1B visas for shorter than three years durations.
H1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
H1B visas are typically issued for three to six years to employers to hire a foreign worker.
The ITServe Alliance based out of Dallas in Texas, in its lawsuit 43-page lawsuit filed last week alleged that the US Citizenship & Immigration Services has recently begun a practice of approving H-1B petitions for shorter than three years durations.
“These petitions are often valid for only months or days at a time, & some cases are expired by the time the approval is received,” it said.
ITServe lawsuit against the USCIS alleges that the agency has no authority to misinterpret the existing regulations & shorten the approval durations.
Actually, the United States Congress has specifically granted power to the Department of Labor & DOL’s regulations grant three-year approvals, the lawsuit said.
The said lawsuit also alleges that the itinerary requirement put forth by the USCIS is also unlawful.
This is the second lawsuit filed by ITServe against USCIS. In the first lawsuit filed in July 2018, ITServe demanded USCIS to remove language from their website prohibiting F-1 STEM OPT students working at the third part client locations.
“The USCIS has been making arbitrary rules & memos for over eight years, it’s our top priority to set things right & hold USCIS accountable to follow the regulations set by the Unites States Congress,” said ITServe’s national president for 2018, Gopi Kandukuri.
While referring to the recent spate of H-1B denials that ITServe members received, Kandukuri added members of ITServe Alliance are tired of receiving random denials for no reason.
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