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Angelo A. Paparelli

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Seyfarth Blog Synopsis:  In today’s posting we discuss the impact that furloughs and layoffs may have on F-1 student workers and related employer obligations.

Attracting and retaining talent involves recruitment of recent graduates and those completing their studies at universities in the U.S.  This talent pool often includes great candidates who are in the U.S. as students on temporary F-1 visas.  U.S. Based businesses  and the F-1 students who they employ now face new challenges as employers move forward with temporary or sometimes permanent cost saving measures through salary reductions, furloughs or layoffs in response to the impacts of COVID-19. This post provides an overview of some of the commonly asked questions to help employers navigating through ongoing changes.
Continue Reading F-1 Student Workers & COVID-19 Impacts on Employment

Seyfarth Blog Synopsis: In today’s posting we discuss the impact that COVID-19 related changes in working conditions, furloughs and layoffs have on  businesses with employees currently working on H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 work visas.

As we continue complying with shelter-in-place and safer-at-home orders implemented in response to COVID-19, organizations nationwide are also starting to assess the impact of these measures on their businesses and operations.  For some employers and industries the sudden transition to a work-from-home model may have been seamless, but overall, the sheer force of the economic impact of these changes is now being felt as company after company considers possible furloughs, salary reductions, and layoffs to help them revamp operations and survive the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. For employers who also sponsor non-citizens for temporary work visas like the H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 (specialty occupation) categories, opting for work-from-home models, furloughs, changes in employment terms, or layoffs as cost-saving measures will require additional analysis.  
Continue Reading Visa Obligations & COVID-19 Changes in Working Conditions

President Trump’s October 9, 2019 overtures landed as music to the ears of many a grizzled immigration lawyer who persistently suffers battle fatigue from the culture of virtually never.  On that day the President released a double album, each with artfully penned liner notes:

The songs of TAFCAEA and IAGD,  resonating beautifully, and soothing frazzled heartstrings, make clear that in adjudicating and enforcing federal laws all covered Executive-Branch agencies must:

  • publish clear guidance rules that spell out permissible and prohibited conduct by regulated parties;
  • eliminate instances of “unfair surprise” so that members of the public (the regulated community) are not blindsided by unforeseen changes in how the agencies interpret federal laws;
  • place any purportedly binding agency rules not published in the Federal Register (known as sub-regulatory guidance) into an indexed and searchable section of each agency’s website (or else, the “rules” go away); and
  • soon announce rules of procedure governing administrative inspections and then be held accountable to comply with the published ground rules.

Continue Reading The Trump Administration Releases a New Hymnal to Curb the Administrative State; Immigration Lawyers Erupt in Rapturous Song

Seyfarth Synopsis: On Friday, March 22, 2019, Seyfarth Shaw’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement Group invites you to join the first webinar in our new Compliance Chatter Series: Inside E-Verify

While, following the federal government shutdown, E-Verify has returned to a modicum of normality, increasing audits and other government oversight…
Continue Reading Upcoming Webinar: Compliance Chatter Series Part 1: Inside E-Verify

[Blogger’s Note:  Today’s post originates from a discovery – a gem hidden in plain sight – first brought to my attention by  Gabe Mozes, my immigration partner at Seyfarth Shaw, and co-author of this piece. Great immigration lawyer that he is, Gabe raised a particularly galling example of how …
Continue Reading What Disclaimer? – USCIS Ignores Labor Department Warning That the Occupational Outlook Handbook Never Be Used for Legal Purposes

By: Angelo A. Paparelli

The familiar lines were drawn. Combatants clashed in a war of words, competing governance philosophies, conflicting laws, and judicial challenges – all in an age-old constitutional battle of federal power versus states’ rights.

This time around, however, the roles were reversed. Version 2018 is unlike the 1960s when extreme-right southern conservatives, claiming to champion states’ rights, defied but ultimately failed to stop federal efforts to protect civil rights. This time, the state of California passed three statutes under its police powers with the avowed purpose of promoting public safety and protecting undocumented state residents against a determined army of newly-unshackled federal immigration enforcement officers. And this time, the state mostly won.Continue Reading From the Jails to the Streets, Courthouses and Worksites: California Takes on the Federal Immigration Police

By: Angelo Paparello

Seyfarth Synopsis: Employers take note. The April 18, 2017 “Presidential Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American,” has unleashed an array of legally dubious grounds from officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as their basis to ask for burdensome additional evidence and to deny requests for work visas and employment-based green cards on behalf of both existing and prospective employees.Continue Reading Revanchist Immigration: The Aftermath of “Buy American, Hire American”

By: Angelo Paparelli

Seyfarth Synopsis:  The EB-5 Immigrant Investment program is at a critical juncture. As Congress contemplates reform legislation, little is known about how newly appointed officials in the Department of Homeland Security will administer and enforce the EB-5 program. The President has named two new officers, Francis Cissna …
Continue Reading The Known and Unknown Future of the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program at USCIS and the USCIS Ombudsman