Application for Alien Employeement Certification (CA)
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Trying to understand this process. Does anyone know the details of employer's role as the application moves through the EDD (Employment Development Department CA), the DOL (Department of Labor)and INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service)?
Comments
>unavailability of domestic workforce is the toughest part of the
>process? Once past that "hurdle" are there similar requirements by
>the DOL & INS for their approval processes? Our employee's legal aid
>advises once approved by EDD all responsibility is on the applicant
>and not the employer?
That advice is absolutely untrue! In no respect is the onus or the cost on the would-be-employee. The employer is the applicant/sponsor in such cases and must maneuver the process. The DOL piece is the simplest of all if your opening is legitimately a specialty occupation or requires skills you cannot find domestically. After submitting appropriate INS documents, the time will come when you must place an ad in a paper or trade journal with broad exposure as well as place the opening with your Employment Security network or whatever its called. They expose it on national job bank. You must keep and prove your postings and submit them later through DOL to INS. You must interview each person who responds in the USA, if qualified, and show precisely why each was not hired. You can get a person on board easy enough through the INS paperwork process, then comes the validity period for the temporary visa, then it's impending expiration, more forms, more job postings inside the company and a public inspection file open to all requestors, postings in your breakrooms, precise job descriptions from which you cannot deviated, $1000 filing fees along the way for various documents, the alien's frequent (just wait) requests for your assistance in supporting his application to travel back to his country of origin for periodic visits (very time consuming and elaborate), support letters from you to his consulate to allow his family to visit, professionally outsourced review of his resume, microscopic review of all coursework at home and in this country, physical examination by a physician especially certified for this process, passport photos, more transcript mailings, lengthy letters by your attorney as to what in this person's background qualifies him/her to the exclusion of others, notice of relatives living here made to the INS, requests for additional data and filings from your INS regional office or service center, letters from you certifying that your attorney is involved, letters from your CFO as to the stability and income of the company with publication as to its income and status........whew, that's about half of it. How can I convince you to avoid the nightmare. Each of these aliens, once on board, has a friend or relative in St. Louis who is an expert on the process and can tell you third hand how to make the process work and they will have a list of bogus websites giving bogus shortcuts and then there's the official INS website that the alien will (mis)quote to you on a daily basis. Of course all of that is crap and will only anger and delay you. I am telling you that it will cost the company in filing fees and legal fees, etc, upwards of $9500 to get permanent resident status for the ee once employed and your company will pay it. The H1-B is portable which means you do not have the person on the hook and cannot legally require that they stay attached to you. If he leaves, you've lost your investment. If you fire him, you pay for his return trip to his country. If you succeed with this 3-5 year process and he gets a green card, he leaves for other pastures and thanks you for your help. Any attorney or aide who assures you that they will manage this process at the alien's expense or either that they are marketing aliens who are already certified and ready to work for you is lying to you, pure and simple. Run from it. Call an attorney today with this expertise and ask him/her to give you a ballpark figure that this process will cost you, including their legal fees and monthly billings for advice. Sorry for the length, but I could not reach you with my baseball bat!