Another Win For H-1B Visa Holders In The US

This time a US court pulled up the USCIS (the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) for denying a visa to an H-1B visa holder in a “capricious and arbitrary” manner.

Well, this isn’t the first time, a series of lawsuits that the Trump administration has lost for denying visas or implementing regulations without the stipulated notice and comment period.

The case involved a firm Innova Solutions. The firm had filed a lawsuit in the Northern District Court of California, against the USCIS in 2018.

Innova Solutions had filed an H-1B petition, for Indian citizen Dilip Dodda for the position of Programmer Analyst from August 2017 and October 2020. He holds a bachelor’s degree in EEE.

However, the USCIS denied the petition in Dec 2017 stating that the firm failed to establish that it is a specialty occupation using the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH).

OOH states that a computer programmer position either requires bachelors or even an associate degree in the computer-related field.

The USCIS interpretation was that if an associate degree is enough for the position, it couldn’t be a specialty occupation. Since programmer analyst falls under the computer programmer category, it cannot be a specialty occupation requiring H-1B.

Innova appealed it in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The three-judge panel ruled in favor of the H-1B petitioner.

In an order dated December 16, 2020, Judge John B Owens reversed the district court judgment and concluded that USCIS’s denial was arbitrary and capricious.