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The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has reported that AILA members have begun receiving prevailing wage determinations from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The prevailing wages were requested from DOL in early June 2011, meaning that prevailing wage determinations are now taking almost three months to be adjudicated after filing. In comparison, as recently as June, wage determinations were generally taking 3-4 weeks to be issued. DOL has not publicly announced that they have resumed issuing wage determinations, so these recent reports may reflect nothing more than a limited effort to work on the oldest wage requests, and not necessarily a return to normal processing times.
As we previously advised, DOL had temporarily halted PERM prevailing wage determinations, in order to comply with federal court orders to re-issue new prevailing wage determinations (PWDs) for certain H-2B nonimmigrant visa applications.
Background: DOL issues PWDs to support various visa categories, including H-2A agricultural workers, H-2B temporary workers, H-1B professionals, and permanent labor certification applications (PERM). All PWDs are issued by a single office, and are normally processed on a first-in, first out (FIFO) basis, regardless of which type of PWD is requested. A DOL-issued PWD is not required for filing an H-1B application, but a PWD is required before a PERM application can be filed.
Jackson & Hertogs is closely monitoring the situation, and we continue to submit PERM prevailing wage requests to DOL. However, the increased timeframe for PERM PWDs may impact all stages of PERM recruitment, as PERM recruitment can only be safely conducted after a PWD has issued. Therefore, PERM applications in preparation that have not yet been issued a PWD may experience delays before filing. PERM cases that have already received satisfactory PWDs from DOL are not impacted. Similarly, the suspension of issuing PWDs has no impact on any filed PERM application.
Jackson & Hertogs will provide further updates as news develops. |
