In a major victory for employers, a US court has approved a settlement under which an American immigration agency has agreed to recognise market research analyst as a speciality occupation for the purposes of determining the applications of H-1B visas, most sought-after by Indian IT professionals.

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The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.

The settlement approved by the federal district court in the Northern District of California would now let companies request that the USCIS reopen and re-adjudicate their denied H-1B petitions. Based on its prior interpretation of the Occupational Outlook Handbook, a Department of Labour's Bureau of Labour Statistics publication profiling hundreds of occupations in the US job market, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determined that market research analysts did not qualify as a "specialty occupation".

Leslie K Dellon, senior attorney (business immigration) at the American Immigration Council, said that this settlement is an important victory that will benefit hundreds of American businesses and the market research analysts they sought to employ. "The settlement gives US businesses another chance to have their H-1B market research analyst petitions approved, this time under new guidance worked out by the parties to the lawsuit. Each H-1B petition reopened and approved will represent another opportunity for US employers and the workers they sponsored to advance their business objectives," she said.

The class action lawsuit was filed by the American Immigration Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the law firms Van Der Hout LLP, Berry Appleman and Leiden LLP (formerly Joseph and Hall PC), and Kuck Baxter Immigration LLC. Jeff Joseph, partner at Berry Appleman and Leiden LLP, said this settlement finally resolves an issue on which immigration lawyers have been battling the government for years.

"This settlement strikes the right balance between what the regulations actually say and how employers evaluate a candidate's professional qualifications in the real world. It is our sincere hope that USCIS will now interpret other specialty occupations from a perspective that is in line with what actually happens in the free market," he said.

First Published:Oct 29, 2021 12:24 PM IST