A US-based Law Firm Has Filed a Lawsuit Against USCIS for Short Term H-1B Visa Approval

United States: With many rapid changes in the norms of H1-B visas, most of the Indian IT employees working in the companies of Indian origin based in the US, are facing a lot of problems from last 2 years. Recently, Most of the Indian employees raised a complaint of losing significant work hours and money as their visas were approved for less than the payroll period time they were currently employed for.

Now the US-based law firm Reddy & Neumann, P.C. came forward to fight for fair USCIS adjudications and filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for unlawfully issuing short term H-1B approvals thereby partially denying the H-1B requests. According to the firms, Reddy & Neumann filed a lawsuit mainly on two legal matters.

Primarily, the lawyers argue on USCIS for partially denying these H-1B cases, USCIS is required to provide a written explanation under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), on why they have partially denied the request and for not granting the full duration requested.

Secondly, most importantly, the lawyers Reddy & Neumann PC argues that the USCIS has no legal authority to issue approvals for anything less than the requested validity period and also argued that they have no authority to issue or partially deny short H-1B approvals.

The Houston-based law firm wants the USCIS to end the practice of denying the visas & issuing a short-term H-1B visa and not exceed their regulatory authority and not violate the rules of Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The firm also said that they have worked on cases where one of the employees filed the same H-1B extension more than three times in a span of six months. Recently, Most of the H1-B applicants has been issued short term visas for as short as a few months or even for just a few weeks.

Steven Brown, an attorney at Reddy & Neumann PC said, “These short approvals have true business impacts. A company that is unsure of its staffing capabilities from month to month due to USCIS short term approvals can have a significant impact on the business. A company may not be able to take additional contracts or may not even be able to perform on the contracts they have presently. The situation caused by USCIS has a chance of ruining business relationships with clients when an employee can’t fulfill the contractual obligations. Having a stabilized workforce is important for any business.”

It is noted that, Due to these short approvals, USCIS significantly increases the costs to companies submitting new filing fees involving the applicants by requiring the IT companies to continuously file extensions for their consulting industry. The lawyers suggest that the ideal time for applicants who are looking to file a lawsuit against a shortened validity period is when the applicant has at least 90 days left on the I-94 (The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) uses the I-94 record to monitor the arrival and departure of foreign nationals traveling to the US.