Making Labor’s Role Easier

Immigration attorneys are cautiously optimistic about a change in the way U.S. employers apply to sponsor foreign-born workers for permanent residency -- a change scheduled to take effect today on the Internet.

Under the Program Electronic Review Management system, employers will for the first time be able to apply for foreign labor certification online rather than through the physical mail. And applications will no longer first go to a state agency and then be passed on to a regional office of the U.S. Labor Department, a process that, in California, would typically take two years.

With the new system, the Labor Department’s role is expected to be compressed to between six to eight weeks.

“Nobody does change well, and when change involves technology, as this does, it can be a little nerve-racking. But we’re hoping that the change would be for the better,” said Crystal Williams, deputy director for programs at the Washington-based American Immigration Lawyers Assn.

Labor Department officials said the new system was designed to streamline and nationalize the foreign labor certification process, while continuing to ensure that the domestic job pool was properly exploited before U.S. employers turned to foreign candidates.

Under the law, a business can hire foreign workers from cooks to scientists if it can demonstrate to the Labor Department that there are no Americans who are both qualified and available. An employer also must guarantee to pay a salary that meets prevailing U.S. standards.

Those requirements haven’t changed. But with the new system, employers won’t have to submit supporting documents to the government unless asked to do so.

Only the actual application form will be e-mailed to the Labor Department. Officials liken the new system to filing taxes electronically; a taxpayer only needs to bring in extensive records when called for an audit.

“Technology allows us to strengthen our overall program’s integrity and provide better customer service,” said Emily Stover DeRocco, assistant secretary of Labor for employment and training.

The application process will continue to remain free of charge to the employer.

Government officials estimated that a large percentage of the applications submitted through the new management system would be on behalf of professionals already working for U.S. companies on visas.

The change will be particularly welcomed in California, where processing an application sent in under the old system took at least 24 months, compared with nine months in some states, such as Illinois.

“This is the grand equalizer,” said Los Angeles immigration lawyer Josie Gonzalez, who specializes in employment-based work and residency applications and represents more than 100 employers in Southern California. “We are going to have two processing stations to cover the whole nation. We are all going to be in the same boat.”

Still, Gonzalez said some California attorneys, who file hundreds of petitions on behalf of local companies seeking foreign workers each year, were worried.

“Some attorneys fear it like the plague,” Gonzalez said. “They are trying to file as many applications as possible before March 28. They fear the unknown.”

Said Carl Shusterman, another Los Angeles immigration lawyer: “It’s almost one of those things, that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It would be unbelievable if it works.”

The Labor Department has posted a Question and Answer section on the topic on its website: workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/foreign/#whatsnew.

Attorneys said that corrupt legal practitioners and notaries had been trying to take advantage of immigrants by suggesting that the new system is some kind of new amnesty program and promising to fast-track their green card applications.

“That is the biggest concern,” said Williams with the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. “There are those who are saying that amnesty starts on March 28. This is not an amnesty. This is not a change in the law. This is a change in the process.”

The Labor Department isn’t responsible for issuing visas or residency documents; those are the duties of U.S. immigration services.

Labor agency officials said that security measures had been put in place to help reject potential fraudsters. Companies will be randomly audited and face investigation and prosecution if found to be willfully cheating the system, the officials said.

“Our procedures are intended to weed out applications that are not legitimate,” DeRocco said.

Gonzalez said the lawyers were hopeful but waiting to be convinced. “The goals of the program are laudatory, but we’ve really got to wait and see how it’s implemented.”