STRATEGIES IN DEALING WITH IMMIGRATION LAW

  Immigration Law Strategies

In order to properly represent clients the firm believes that, in addition to a deep understanding of the applicable rules and regulations, the client's problem has to be reviewed with a systems analysis approach. The firm believes that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), the Visa Office, the Department of Labor and the Consular Service are complicated government agencies that were established to perform various goals. It is important to understand these goals and how these agencies are organized and managed. With this information the needs of the clients are reviewed along with an applicable law and regulations. It is this mixture of both law and systems analysis that allows the firm to offer a high quality of service to it clients.

In recent years the Immigration and Nationality Act has become increasingly more complex. This in turn has placed considerable burden on the CIS. The agency has responded by hiring a large number of new people and has organized itself around a tightly group of professional. In addition the agency has developed a significant number of computer systems to assist in the adjudication of visa petitions and other applications. Often times these changes have to be taken into account to determine the best approach to resolving a problem with the agency.

For example, the adjudication of an H-1B visa petitionis now done at a regional processing center. These centers are very large and are closed to the public. In effect they operate like a factory. The visa petition, once received by the center, is opened and reviewed to see if the application has the required documents and proper fee. Then it is sent to another section where basic information is inputted into the computer. The petition is then sent to an examiner who is a professionally trained CIS employee with in depth knowledge about the subject matter. While the examiner is generally the person that makes a decision, the examiner is under a considerable amount of pressure to complete the review of the application within a short period of time. This law office estimates that the examiner is only given about seven minuets to adjudicate the average H-1B petition. If the petition is very complicated or involves difficult legal issues, often times the examiner will delay the final adjudication of the application and instead work on those petitions currently on his or her desk that can quickly be resolved.

If additional information is needed, the examiner will type out a message to the petitioners on to the computer terminal at his or her desk. The message is then mailed directly to the petitioner by the automated systems within the center. Often times the additional information the examiner is seeking is part of the application, but the application or petition is so poorly presented that the examiner cannot find it within the seven minute period.

If the examiner is satisfied with the petition, he or she then pulls up the file on the computer screen and marks it approved. The system then sends out the approval notice and maintains the appropriate records.

Because of the seven minute rule this law firm has developed procedures for presenting complicated legal issues in a manner that can be reviewed by the examiner within time period. All known issues are clearly identified and brought to the examiner's attention in bold letters and the supporting documentation is indexed and tabulated to allow the examiner to quickly find it if necessary. In addition, all unnecessary documentation or information is left out of the application.

Because of the day to day dealings this firm has with the CIS we are able to quickly identify when new issues are of concern to the CIS. We change our presentation of the visa petitions to meet these concerns as quickly as possible. This assures that our clients will obtain a decision regarding their petitions as quickly as possible.

Immigration problems are similar in many ways to engineering problems. Both involve with complicated systems that have to be fully understood in order to get results. However, immigration problems in at least one important way differ from engineering problems. With engineering problems once the variables are identified and the problem is solved, the solution stays in place for long periods of time. With immigration problems, the variables do not remain in place for long periods. Often the CIS will change the procedure for adjudicating a problem or shift the focus of its review without notifying the public. For example, it is possible that the CIS my decide to demand greater information on H-1B petitions regarding the ability of the employer to actually pay the prevailing wage that is shown on the labor attestation. Such shifts in the focus of the review of the petition can cause significant delays in the processing time. As a result of this ever changing environment, the law firm has to constantly review its procedures for preparing petitions.

This systems approach to immigration law is practiced with every type of application and petition prepared by the firm. It affects the procedures for applications for labor certifications, visa petitions, consular processing, removal hearing, and the filing of petitions for review in Federal Court.