The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released a new I-129S form that will ask for specific details about a foreign workers’ prior work history in an effort to address the concerns. The new form has doubled in length from four pages to eight in order to gather information, especially in determining what “specialized knowledge” an applicant has and if it meets the L-1 visa conditions.
The L-1 visa program allows companies to transfer employees with "specialized knowledge" from the foreign facilities to their U.S. offices. Unlike the H-1B visa, there is currently no cap or wage requirement for L-1 visas.
Employers have used L-1 visas to replace American workers with cheaper labor, even though the foreign workers did not offer additional specialized skills. In 2013 the DHS Inspector General “slammed the L-1 program for fraud.”
The extended I-129S form asks for more details about prior employment and wages (wages are converted from local currency to the U.S. dollar equivalent), it also asks for the percentage of time a foreign worker will spend doing the job duties listed on a daily basis, and it probes into third-party client worksite scenarios.
Beth Carlson, an immigration attorney in the Minneapolis office of Faegre Baker Daniels, explained, "The layout and information asked on Form I-129S will allow for quick review by the consular officers without having to review additional documents or ask more questions of the applicant."
Justin Storch, manager of agency liaison at the Council for Global Immigration, said, "The new fields requiring employers to enter detailed employment history information directly on the form, including wages, is likely to lead to more scrutiny for would-be L-1s in a way they have not in the past."
The L-1 visa would also play a huge role in The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. TPP agreement would allow employers from TPP countries to use L-1 visas to send employees to the U.S. and pay them at the same rate they would make in their home countries, which is a lot less than their American counterparts.
Read more on this story at the Society For Human Resource Management.
