Department of Labor Releases Information related to USCIS adjudicating H-1Bs

As H-1B employers and H-1B beneficiaries have long known, US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has relied heavily, and erroneously, in asserting H-1B eligibility based on a sister agency’s data, specifically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH).The OOH itself notes, “the OOH provides a general, composite description of jobs and cannot be expected to reflect work situations in specific establishments or localities. The OOH, therefore, is not intended to, and should never, be used for any legal purpose.”

Pursuant to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Department of Labor (DOL) released information related to communications within the BLS concerning USCIS’s use of the OOH in adjudicating H-1B petitions.  The FOIA request highlights from BLS, “We have known for several years that the US. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS) occasionally uses education and training information in the OOH to establish strict education requirements for H-1B eligibility. This is an incorrect use of OOH information and we discourage this practice.”