| The United States Department of Labor is charged with issuing labor certifications to certain aliens who wish to migrate permanently to the U.S. For example, most immigrants who hold advanced degrees or exceptional abilities, who hold bachelor's degrees, who have at least two years' experience as skilled workers, and who will work as unskilled workers in areas for which there are no qualified workers in the U.S. must obtain labor certifications as prerequisites to the issuance of their visas.
To ease this administrative burden, the Department has issued a list of occupations for which labor certifications will not be issued without a waiver. This documents is known as Schedule B. Aliens who wish to immigrate permanently to the U.S. in these classifications are not eligible for labor certifications because the Department has predetermined that there is a sufficient number of native workers that are both available and willing to work in those jobs and that the labor market will be adversely impacted by the addition of alien labor. Schedule B is no longer a consideration for applications filed after March 28, 2005.
Schedule B Occupations
Schedule B occupations, which are ineligible for labor certifications without waivers, encompass a very wide range of jobs, most of which are unskilled and require little or no training or experience. Examples of some of the occupations on Schedule B include parking lot and service station attendants; bartenders; taxi drivers; general, hotel, sales, and grocery clerks; short order cooks and fountain workers; groundskeepers and yard workers; guards; helpers, common, and mine laborers; housekeepers and janitors; nurses' aides; receptionists; truck drivers; and lesser-skilled and clerk typists.
Waivers
In 1977, labor certifications were first allowed for Schedule B jobs. Waivers are only available, however, if requested by a particular employer when native workers are not able, willing, qualified, and available for that employer. Certain documentary requirements must be met, however, before a waiver will be granted. First, an employer must file a petition for a waiver with a regional immigration certifying officer. Second, documentation must be filed that shows either that either the relevant employee bargaining agent has been properly notified or that, if there is no such agent, a notice has been properly posted at the proposed place of employment. The final requisite documentation is a statement by the state employment service agency that a 30-day job order was placed but that no qualified worker applied.
After the local state employment agency processes the application for a waiver, it forwards the materials to either its state headquarters or to a regional immigration certifying officer for a final decision. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |