H-1B Specialty visas can be granted to computer programmers, says American court
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A new decision by the US appellate court (referred to as ninth circuit) is a resonating victory for IT organizations that try to sponsor computer programmers for H-1B visas. The ninth circuit has considered as arbitrary and capricious a decision US citizenship and immigration services. Which had held that computer programmers are not qualified for H-1B specialty visas. USCIS had in 2017 canceled an earlier policy memo, which identified the position of computer programmers as a ‘specialty’ occupation and thus eligible for H-1B visas.
For this situation, heard by the appellate court, Innova Solutions had tried to recruit an Indian resident to work as a computer programmer. The H-1B visa application was denied by USCIS. A US employer who wants to sponsor staff members under the H-1B program. Needs to show that the position requires “theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge”.
H-1B Specialty Visas
It will be currently possible for US IT organizations to sponsor techies. Under the category for temporary immigration to the US under ‘specialty’ H-1B visas. Innova Solutions filed the claim against USCIS in 2018 in the Northern District Court of California. The organization had hired one Dilip Dodda for the position of the post of Programmer Analyst between August 2017 and October 2020. USCIS denied the visa application in 2017 citing DOL’s Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH).
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USCIS relied on the department of labor’s occupational outlook handbook. This expresses that ‘most’ computer programmers have a four-year certification. And it describes that degree as the ‘typical level of education that most workers require’. It denied the H-1B application on the grounds that Innova Solutions had neglected to show that a computer programmer qualified as a ‘specialty’ post.
Cyrus D Mehta, a New York-based founder of an immigration law office, told TOI. The decision is a refreshing rebuttal to USCIS’s longstanding practice of challenging computer programming on specialty occupation grounds. It reminds the USCIS that it can’t depend on the bureaucratic description… (for denials).
