We will be recording this webinar. And if you have any questions, please put them in the Q&A and we will answer them at the end of the session. With that, we'll go ahead and get started. So for a very quick overview of what types of visas are used at the University of Delaware for employment, we have several different categories. One of them, the two most popular are H-1B and J-1. J-1, we will have another presentation in a couple weeks regarding sponsoring that status. But note that they are an exchange visitor category. And under those categories, there are several different types, such as a research scholar, professor, specialist, short-term scholar, all of those at which we can talk to, for your needs. They may be subject to something called the two-year home residency requirement. Again, we'll go over that in more detail in our upcoming sessions, but that does not mean that they cannot return to the U .S. for two years, but it does restrict them from certain benefits, such as an H -1B or permanent residency before they complete those requirements or receive a waiver. They're also subject to maybe subject to something called the 12 or 24th month bar that's specifically related to the research scholar and professor categories. That's not necessarily something that is an issue for those looking to get a J1 student visa or other visa categories. And as always, our office will work with you to figure out the category, the duration and issue, what's called a DS-29. This is the immigration form that's used for them to go apply for a visa at the consulate abroad and also maintains their status while they're here. Next is the H -1B employee. I'm not going to talk about that because we have a whole hour to discuss. And then the F-1 student. So while students are in their degree -seeking program, they typically are not eligible for off-campus employment. But there is something after they graduate and sometimes while they're in their program called O.P.T. But we most commonly see students using what we call post-O -PT, meaning post-graduation, optional practical training. This allows students to gain employment in their field of study for 12 months. And then if they are in a STEM field, they're eligible for an additional two years. So those STEM students may get a total of three years of employment after graduating from their major. The main document you'll see for those that are on OPT is they will receive an employment authorization document or card. This is issued by USCIS and they'll have the dates that they are eligible to work in their field of study. If this is an F -1 student at UD, our office will continue to maintain their immigration record during that up to three -year periods after graduation. If you're hiring a student from another university on OPT, that university will continue to maintain their F-1 record, and is the student's responsibility to update that school with all of their employment updates and changes. The B1B2 is also known as the tourist or business visa. So this allows for nationals to come to the U.S. for up to six months for the purposes of tourism or business. And there's also something called the Visa Waiver Program. So this allows those from certain countries, typically European countries, to come here on essentially what is a business or tourist visa for up to 90 days, but they do not have to go to the U.S. consulate abroad to get that actual visa in their passport, similar to how U.S. citizens can travel to certain countries and not actually have to go to a consulate to get a visa before flying there. During the tourist or business visa, you cannot engage in study collaborative research or any kind of employment while in the U.S., but there are some exceptions for very short -term, less than nine days of employment used for honorarium purposes. So if you have a scholar coming from another country that wants to present at a conference or a seminar, those things may be permitted. Again, if you have anyone coming to do any kind of collaborative research or study, you know, please talk to us because, again, coming in on the tourist visa and engaging in employment or collaborative research could be considered a violation of their stay. The 01 is the extraordinary visa, extraordinary ability visa. This is a very difficult visa to get, essentially to be eligible, you have to prove similar attributes that you would see in some of our permanent residency cases, and these cases are very extensive. So these go through our retained outside counsel for any of those cases. We only have a handful of 0-1s on campus. Again, if you think that you may need this visa category, please discuss this further with us. The TN is for Canadian and Mexican citizens of specific occupations. There is a list out there. I don't know if that of our spreadsheet actually links to the list of those occupations. But the most common that we would see are under the scientist or researcher or category, professor, teacher categories. They may come for up to three years. There's no time limit on how many three years, so they could technically come for three years, three years, three years. It is a relatively easy visa category to get because Canadians can apply at the border. They do not need to go through the process of applying at the U.S. consulate or filling out paperwork with our office. but they do need to maintain their status and keep us updated on where they are and when they're going to need to renew. Similar for Mexican citizens is slightly different in that they do need to go to the consulate to obtain that TN visa, that sticker in their passport, but again, it is not as lengthy of a process as it may be for an H-1B or other categories. The E3 is a specialty occupation workers category specifically for Australian citizens. It is set up very similar to the H-1B in the qualifications regarding what is considered a specialty occupation. They do need a prevailing wage. However, if they go to the consulate, they can take that prevailing wage. We do not have to go through the whole process of filing paperwork to USCIS. So it is easier than the H-1B but has similar characteristics. Those are for two -year increments, and again, similar to the TN, there's no time limit or cap on how many of those two-year increments that they have. All right, with that. I'm going to pass it on to Bradford to go into a deep dive, of the H-1B. Thank you, Janica, and welcome everyone. So we are going to look at some more specifics here regarding the H-1B visa. So I believe, as Janica already mentioned, the H-1B visa is a specialty occupation visa type. So when we think of specialty occupation, you know, perhaps that can be a little bit vague. But essentially, we are looking at a position which requires theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge. So we are looking at positions that require certain experience, education within a specific field in order to qualify for H1B. In terms of academic credentials, we are looking at a bachelor's degree or higher, again, within that specific specialty to qualify as a specialty occupation and then by extension for the H-1B. And then so with that, if you are looking to employ a foreign national sponsor them in H -1B, they need to meet these criteria for the position in order to be considered eligible for. for the visa. So on this slide, we have some information on the limits on time in H-1B status. So when we are sponsoring for H-1B, we are permitted to petition for up to three years of H-1B time with each petition. pardon me so that means that you know we can petition for up to three years that does not mean that the department is required to petition for three years we could petition for less or you know fewer than three years however the fees that go into that petition are going to be the same regardless for however long we are petitioning for so for example if we petition for one year, the fees that go into that, the filing fee, premium processing fee, etc., would be the same as if we filed for two or three years. So oftentimes when working with departments, we may recommend or, you know, encourage a department to consider this duration of sponsorship, you know, when petitioning processes. The overall maximum time for H-1B is six years. This is inclusive of any previous H-1B time. So oftentimes we will have departments who are looking to employ someone who maybe is already in H -1B status with a different employer, a different institution. That is okay. we can, in most circumstances, bring them into our H -1B sponsorship. However, that time they've already spent with that previous employer counts towards that six -year. So moving to UD does not restart that clock. So that is something important for us to consider in terms of the available time for sponsorship. Importantly, though, that six-year time does not count time spent abroad. So in certain circumstances, we may have someone who spent an extensive period of time abroad, perhaps for field research, or some other reason that they may have been abroad for a significant amount of time in which they had H-1B approval. In those cases, it may be available for us to recapture time. And potentially we could petition for additional time beyond that six years to recapture that time spent abroad. There is also a provision which allows for the H-1B six-year clock to restart after one year of residence and physical presence abroad. So if the six -year timeline is met, but the employee resides abroad and remains abroad for a period of one year, that H-1B-6-year clock can restart. There are also certain provisions that allow for sponsorship beyond those six years related to the green card process or legal permanent residency. So if our employee and we're sponsoring them for legal permanent residency or maybe even if they're pursuing that through self-sponsorship, if they have met one of these two criteria, the first being that period of 365 days or more have passed since filing a labor certification or the I-140 immigrant petition, we can apply for a H-NB extension. of up to one year beyond the six years. In the event that their I-140 immigrant petition has been approved, but they are not yet able to file the I-485 adjustment of status petition based on the per -country limits. We could petition for up to three years beyond the six years, and we can continue petitioning for that until we get to that point where the I-485 is adjudicated and they enter green card status. So those are some really interesting and key provisions that are built into the dual intent nature of the H-1B that allows for Accentium-6. If there are ever any questions regarding how some of these features may play into an employee that you're looking to sponsor, please contact us and we can review that and see whether or not some of these provisions are available. On this slide here, we have included a graphic to explain the overall H-1B process and timeline. So that process starts first with our office with the department's submission of a sponsorship request. So that is going to be through our portal, Teradata, where the department will submit a new sponsorship request, which is essentially a one-pager providing us initial information to confirm one whether the position itself looks to be eligible for H-1B status, but also that the applicant, the individual, there's no initial red flags that would indicate that they may be ineligible for H-1B status. Once that's received, we're going to review that. If there's any questions or any follow-up needed from that, we will, of course, reach out to the department. But then if we're able to proceed, we will approve that. And we will then move into the collection stage of collecting information from the department, as well as the foreign national as well. Information, personal information, information related to the employment, documentation, et cetera. This is all information we're going to need in order to proceed with our petition. Once we are able to, once we've collected everything and we're able to proceed, in the event of a non-CBA position, so a position that's not faculty, not covered by the collective bargaining agreement, our next step for an in-house filing is going to be submitting a prevailing wage request with the Department of Labor. That process, currently I would say, is taking between seven to nine months. Unfortunately, there is not a way to expedite that process. So essentially how the DOL operates, it's a first-in, first-out basis, so that seven to nine months is what we are seeing on average. Once that prevailing wage is received, or pardon me, is returned. and a determination is favorable, we can move on to our next step for the non-CBA individuals, and that is the notice of filing. We have recently, within the last few months, implemented a somewhat new process. Some of you may recall that the notice step used to go to the department to post two notices, to paper notices into conspicuous locations at the work site. We've now moved that transition to occur through the UDEL careers page, electronically. So CGPS has kind of taken that step on, taken that back to, you know, from the department to post electronically, just to ease some of the burden on our departments. But that notice is filed for 10 business days. Moving on, once we are within six months of the intended H-1B start date, We can file what's called the labor conditions application with the Department of Labor. This is where we are providing all the information regarding the employment. You know, where the employment is going to be taking place, the employment dates, the offered wage, all these factors, which the DOL is going to review, and they are going to certify. That certification process can take up to two weeks. Once that LCA is returned, that's when we can then file the actual H-1B petition. That process for regular processing can take between three to five months. I would say we are currently a little bit on the longer end of that. I would say maybe four to five, unfortunately, for regular processing. There is the option for premium processing. with USCIS because they are a fee -funded agency. With premium processing, the adjudication happens within 15 business days. In the event that your employee is located abroad, and we're filing for consular processing, there would be an additional time there set aside for them to attend a visa appointment at a consulate abroad to seek the H-1B visa. but once they are, once they've received that visa or once we are within that requested H-1B start date, they are eligible to enter the country and begin that employment. Quick explainer, as far as the colors here, I mentioned these two items in the lighter blue. These are the only non-CBA positions. For our CBA positions, our faculty positions, we'd only be looking at the dark blue, potentially that tan color if the individual is located abroad. I mentioned briefly kind of that new sponsorship request process, but with the implementation of Teradata, the H-1B process is now essentially happens in two steps. That first is the new sponsorship request. As I said, that's kind of a one-pager, initial information to determine eligibility. So we're gathering really general information about the foreign national, such as like their visa history. We're collecting general information about the position, and then potentially if there are any relevant documents from there as well. we're gathering information about the Department of Employment or employee, again, just kind of to gather general eligibility there. Once that's been approved, we then move into the pending request stage of the overall request. This is where we're collecting all of the data that we're going to need in order to actually file a petition. And this is that collaborative process where the department is submitting items, but so is the full. are national. So the department is submitting, you know, their obligations agreement. They're submitting specific information about who the PI or supervisor will be, the job locations, minimum qualifications, any sort of specific position duties, the salary, etc. As well as required documents, which could potentially include HR class and comp review, which we'll discuss here in a second. Also, export control, et cetera. All these items are indicated in Teradata. As I said, the foreign national, the H1B themselves, they're also providing information, personal information, and documentation in this portal as well. With that, I'm going to pass over to Judith really briefly to discuss HR classification and compensation. As Bradford mentioned, after the first step in the H-1B process, once your sponsorship request is approved, there are certain documents that are required for us to move forward and proceed within the process. The H.R. classification and compensation review form, this is the first page of a four-page form is for classified positions only. And what we're looking for here is the information for a national as well as other members of your employees in your department to ensure that we're offering the most accurate classification based on a certain criteria. So within this, we're looking at completing information on the job title, specific job duties, the degree required for the position, whether there's any travel required for the position, if your H-1B worker will have any supervisory responsibilities within the and if there is what the actual employment experience necessary to fulfill the role is. So the people that are exempt from this review, as Bradford mentioned, are your faculty members, the postdoc researchers that you may have in your department, as well as limited term researchers. Also, when you're completing this form, please keep in mind that if there are any comparable employees in your department doing similar work to that of the foreign national, this information must also be disclosed on the form for classification compensation review. Once you've completed all of the information, we would ask that this then be emailed to classification compensation for their approval. Once it's approved, the document should then be uploaded to the scholars' record in Teradata. And the reason why we need this information is so that after classification compensation completes their review, we can move forward with filing the prevailing wage with the Department of Labor for the foreign worker. And Bradford will speak more to that, I think, now. Thank you, Judith. Yes. So in terms of the H-1B, there is a required wage to be paid to the worker. And when we refer to required wage, we are speaking to the hire of either the actual wage determination or the prevailing wage determination. So the actual wage determination is what Jeweth was just alluding to, where the department is reviewing comparable employees within the department and looking at their, and that's those who are in the same title with the same job duties, the same qualifications, et cetera, and confirming the separate criteria that may have gone into determining their salary, looking at these factors, which is work experience. job function, specialized knowledge, other business factors, etc. The prevailing wage determination, again, for non -CBA positions, this is what we are requesting from the Department of Labor. So they're going to return the prevailing wage. For CBA positions, this is governed by the CBA. That is the prevailing wage. So we're not submitting anything to the Department of Labor in those regards. If we are working with the DOL for the request, we're going to work with the department to select a job code that best fits the job position. And we're going to suggest this to the DOL, which they will review that suggestion as well as other criteria such as the job location, the geographic location, minimum qualifications. and they're going to assign a wage level of one to four within a job code, which could be the one that we suggested or it could be another one that they feel better aligns. Okay. So it is the higher of the two, either the actual wage determination or the prevailing wage determination, which determines the required wage for the position and then by extension for the comparable employees as well. So it's important when you're drafting advertisements to be careful of some of this language because all this is going to go into the prevailing wage determination. So again, those duties, qualifications, preferences, generally speaking preferences or seen as requirements. So these are just items to be aware as you're drafting those advertisements or working with the party in your department who will be drafting. advertisements. Judith, I think you covered this a little bit already, but do you want to give any more detail here? Sure. So for the actual wage determination, this is a form that is required for all members that are being sponsored in H1B. This table is for your CBA, postdoc, everyone. And the actual wage is the wage paid to other employees with similar experience and qualifications, as Bradford mentioned, doing the same job as your H-1B worker. The information that you should include here would provide an explanation to clarify or justify any salary discrepancies amongst employees in the department. doing comparable work to that of the foreign national. If there are no other employees doing the same job as your H-1B worker, then the salary offered would be considered the actual wage. And again, looking at the table here to determine the actual wage, you would need to include the position, the experience, education of the foreign national, as well as other employees in the department if there are any certifications that they have or if they're specialized knowledge. Again, we use the actual wage determination table to help explain how we came up with the wage that's being offered. This is a, I'm sorry, the actual wage determination table should be fully completed because this is also information that we use when filing the prevailing wage with the DOL. And the actual wage determination table is included in our public access file, excuse me, for the H-1B worker. And this document is required as it would include the details showing how the actual wage was determined in the event of an audit by the Department of Labor. And so please remember to include as much detail as possible, specifically when you have comparable employees within your department to explain why there are salary differences amongst employees in the department doing similar work. And as always, as you're completing any of the documentation that's required by us, we're available to answer any questions that you may have to help clarify what information we're specifically looking for on this actual wage determination form. Thank you, Judith. So then this slide we're just providing some further, maybe an example of what we're looking at when we're looking at a prevailing wage. So we're going to look at an example here where perhaps a department is looking to hire a director of health services. So for this position, the minimum qualification is a PhD in two years' experience. And they are going to be supervising staff and student workers. And the current offered salary is 110, $110,000, I should they say. So in this example, we are going to say that the, education administrator's post -secondary job code is the code that was suggested, and we're also saying that this is the one that the Department of Labor agreed with. So looking at the factors that we have here, generally speaking, we can look at the education level that the position has listed under the job code and two years experience at that job level of being that level one. So in this case, this is listed as a master's as that first level. So we can look at masters with two years experience at level one. Every two additional years, generally speaking, we can look at another level increasing. If the minimum qualification for the position is a degree higher than that degree level, in this case it is, PhD, we can assume that's going to increase. increase us a level. We can also, if there's these special duties, such as supervising other staff, we can expect that to increase by level as well. So in this example, because the degree is PhD, whereas this job code list masters is kind of the base level, we can expect that we are looking already at level two at PhD in two years experience. However, we also have supervisory duties. So we're going to expect that this determination would come back at a level 3, in which case this salary came back at 122.96, at which point we would then have the conversation with the department about our next steps, whether the salary can be increased to meet that prevailing wage. If we're not able to increase the wage, then unfortunately we're unable to proceed with the H-1B. I mentioned earlier that one of our steps is filing what's called the labor conditions application or LCA with the Department of Labor. Again, this is an attestation of all the duties or the information related to the employment, but this is also a confirmation that the H-1B employee is going to be given all the same wages. and benefits that are provided together, similarly qualified employees that are doing that comparable work. And again, it's a confirmation that the H-1B employee is at least making or exceeding the prevailing wage as determined by the DOL or by the CBA. Judith, could you walk us through filing fee checks, please? Sure. So the next step after we have submitted our LCA to the Department of Labor, we would contact the department to request the filing fee checks for the H-1B. And the checks can be requested by submitting a non -PO payment request to procurement services, making checks payable to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. When you're submitting your request, we do ask that you specifically note that you you will collect the checks from procurement services when they're ready, and then we do ask that you deliver them to our office. When you are working through submitting your check request, please do not send the checks to us via campus mail once they've been issued, just so that there is no lag in delivery as we want to get these petitions sent out as quickly as possible. But you would email your request to procurement services, and you should consolidate your request into one non-P -requisition per applicant and ask for separate checks. So there are three different filing fees that could potentially be paid for the H-1B, We would ask that you choose the documentation that's required from procurement with your department when you're submitting. And please ensure that on the checks, they reference which filing fee the check is for. So there's the typical $460 I-129 filing fee. There could be the anti -fraud fee or premium processing. if it's elected by the department. And again, for multiple checks, for one applicant, you can just complete the transaction within one POP with procurement services. Thank you, Judith. Sorry, pardon. I couldn't find my mute button. So when we think of once the employee has begun their employment, you know, what are the department's continued obligations? I think it's a really important topic. Within, generally speaking, any immigration context, this is true, but especially within the H-1B context, the department is obligated to notify CGPS of any proposed changes in the employment. Really key word there is proposed, because we do need, to be notified of any prospective changes before they occur. So this could include any changes such as an increase in the offered salary, a change in their work hours, a new title, additional titles, new or additional job duties, maybe a new work site. I don't know if we have anyone here from the College of Earth Ocean and Environment right now, but for example, say, they're working mostly in Newark, but they're going to be now working a couple days a week in the Lewis campus, perhaps. We would need to be notified of that. If there are any periods of leave of absence, so perhaps for sabbatical or parental leave, any sort of leave such as this, and then also end of employment, whether that's through resignation, termination, contract, non-renewal, all these factors. We do. need to be notified ahead of time. And the reason for this is because the H -1B status is derived from the continued H-1B employment. And the H-1B approval itself is both employer and employment position specific. So if there are any changes in the terms of this employment, we need to be notified so that we can determine perhaps whether an amendment to the approved, the currently approved H-1B employment is needed. Okay. And again, that petition must be submitted or maybe in certain circumstances even approved before any of those changes can be implemented. Okay. If these changes occur, so if some of these employment changes occur and were maybe not notified and an amendment possibly not filed, that could be considered a violation of the H-1B status and working without authorization, which could have some pretty significant impacts on the department, but then also, of course, the foreign national working as well. as one of these factors that we need to know about. I just want to spend some additional time here. So again, H-1B status is derived from the continued employment that has been approved. So when the employment is going to be ending for an H-1B employee, especially within the context that the employment is ending prior to the end date that we have requested from USCIS, we are required to withdraw the labor conditions application with the Department of Labor, but also request revocation of the overall H-1B status with USCIS. So if the employment for an H-1B worker is going to be ending, we do need to be notified immediately. And again, prior to the effective date so that we can provide guidance on the overall. overall steps. Largely, we're going to be reviewing information provided from the department to determine the basis of the end of employment relationship. Who is ending the partnership, the employment? Is it ending through resignation on behalf of the employee? Or is it ending through termination, contract non-renewal, perhaps other factors that are more on the employer side, because that's ultimately going to impact our process forward? course, there is documentation that we would need to document this end of employment as well. Specifically within the context where the employer has ended the employment relationships, so again, perhaps through termination or even contract non-renewal, anything where UD is the one who is ending the employment, prior to that end date, we are required. to ensure a bona fide termination has occurred. So guidance states that the Department of Labor is most likely to agree that a bona fide termination occurred, provided that the notice of end-of -employment has written notice has been provided to the H -1B employee. That would come from the department side. The department would be obligated in that context to offer to pay the reasonable costs of the return transportation to the employee's last country of residents abroad. And they would also need to submit a completed end of employment form to our office. That form serves as a confirmation of the employment actually has ended. Once these confirmations and documentation to this end are received, that would lead to CGPS, withdrawing the LCA, as I said, and requesting that revocation from USCIS. So, again, this is important for us to be notified prior to any of this occurring so that we can provide this guidance, can walk the department through what is needed, what needs to be happened, or what needs to happen so that we can make sure we are following the proper procedures there. So why we stress this is because the Department of Labor, as I'm sure all of you are aware, they are there to make sure that, you know, there are fair labor practices. So perhaps in the event that we're found to not be following these steps, these are some of the possible consequences that we could experience. So perhaps the university could be obligated to pay back pay to the H-1B employee. Potentially, there could be civil fines of up to over $50,000, which is quite significant. We could be found to be liable under perjury and federal law, which could come with fines or prison time. There could also, this is, I think, one of the really big ones, debarment from filing USCI, U.S.CIS petitions for non -immigrant or immigrant sponsorship for a period of up to three years. So that's a pretty big impact across the university in terms of employing international workers. And then, of course, other administrative remedies as well as seen fit. We have a slide here about legal permanent residency. We're not going to spend too much time here on this because we actually have a session next week about this specific topic. Okay, but just some items to keep in mind, again, there is that six-year max for H-1B time. So if the department is considering sponsorship for legal permanent residency, they are going to want to consider that in line with this six-year max time, keeping in mind that we do not sponsor non-academic staff positions unless there is a special case that can be made. Our legal permanent residency cases are coordinated with our retained outside counsel. So if we are proceeding with UD sponsorship, that case would be referred to them. The worker is not able to hire their own immigration firm. And only CGPS would be authorized to sign any of the documentation that goes into that as well. A lot of you, I'm sure, are working with faculty cases. There is a specific 18-month deadline with faculty cases to qualify for the special handling labor certification. That deadline is based on 18 months from the date of offer, not the start date. And the labor certification is going to require a prevailing wage, which, as you will recall, there is quite a bit of a backlog there. So it's important to keep that deadline in mind. Again, that is based on the date of offer, and there is this step that could take quite some time with the Department of Labor. So unlike maybe previously, where there may have been a little bit of a buffer time, Oftentimes, as your foreign worker, your faculty member is being offered the position, we may need to start those LPR sponsorship conversations at that time versus waiting until they're in the position for quite some time. We are going to take some time here to look at our Teradata portal. So Teradata is the system that we use to facilitate. immigration processes for our scholar population, both J1 and H1B. For those who are not familiar with this site, once you log in, this is the dashboard that you are going to see, broken up by sponsorship requests, pending records, active records, inactive alerts. I mentioned earlier that first initial step, that one pager, that's the new sponsorship request, which is located here. So as you can see, this is this one pager. Really important here is that we do need all of the questions answered because, again, we are using this to determine eligibility. If we are receiving requests where maybe some questions are left blank, we are going to have to reach back out because we do need that information because it could impact eligibility. There's also certain logic criteria that could go into some of those So really important that we have all of the responses filled out. If we look at a pending record, so we're going to go to our example case here of Beyonce. This is a pending record. And as you're working through this record and filling out information, you're going to be largely focused on the department tab. The department tab is going to ask you to read through all these questions. and, you know, sign off on this obligations, provide information related to the position. Really important that we want to address here, this section titled Prevailing Wage. We need this filled out with every case, even those CBA cases that are not going to have a request going to the Department of Labor because, again, a prevailing wage is still being determined, but it's determined by the CBA. But the position in this chart, we do need to actually file the LCA and the overall petition as well. So we really need all of this information filled out here. Actual wage, we do actually have a separate document, which we'll get to in a second for you to fill out there, but important for that to be filled out. And as you're working through this page, want to make sure you're hitting that save button at the bottom to save your entries, because if you enter information, here and navigate away, your entries are not going to be saved. I mentioned documents. Up at the top of this page, we have a listed H -1B documents from the department where we are indicating which documents are required. If there is a specific form, the link is there for that form. And you'll note here, in this case, that's a non-CBA form. So for non-CBA positions, for those for CBA, we have those listed accordingly as well. There's also instructions for the fee table and requesting checks, which is updated if there are ever any updates to those processes. And so that's there as your resource there. The beneficiary tab, this is what the H-1B worker is filling out very much as you are, series of questions about their personal experience, and then also requesting documents as well, which are then uploaded within the documents tab. You'll see here a long list of possible documents. These are, again, all the possible documents that could go into an H-1B case. That's not to say that every document listed here is going to be relevant to your case. That's why we direct you to that list of what is needed under the department tab. And then to upload that, you would just navigate to the correct section. So say you're providing the offer letter, you would go to letters, browse, find a document, and then we've included some instructions of, you know, how to upload that. There is the option to make items visible to the scholar or only to the, to yourself. We would say generally speaking, if a document has come to you from the scholar, the employee, or it's something maybe they already have, go ahead and check that. off because we've found that sometimes the, if you don't check that off, the employee doesn't know that you've supplied the document, so they'll resupply it to us, and then we have duplicates. So please just keep that in mind. Once all of this page has been completed and you've confirmed with your employee that they've completed all of their sections, that's when we ask you to then hit the submit to I++S admin because that's going to alert our office that we are ready for in initial review. We do ask that you wait to do that again until you've confirmed with the foreign worker because otherwise they may be locked out from adding an information and we'll have to unlock and have that be resubmitted. So please confirm with them before you actually select that option. Okay. back to our presentation. I'm going to, I think, pass over to Judith to just give you some notes to remember, pardon me. Well, we do appreciate everyone taking time out of their busy day to learn about H-1B sponsorship. And I guess some of the key takeaways that we'd like to share with you is please start the process as soon as possible. Because of delays with the Department of Labor, for example, in USCIS, our processing times, we are seeing increases in the timing of adjudication or receiving our prevailing wages requests back from the DOL. There could also be some delays potentially with issuance of our filing fee checks or the export control certification signature from the research office. We are seeing that there are delays now also with visa wait times abroad and there is an 18 -month deadline to be cognizant of for your faculty members where we may be moving forward with the permanent residency process and also very importantly the department should notify our office, anytime there's a change in employment for any of the H-1B workers within your department. Also, it's very important that you maintain the required wage. So when we submit our labor certification to the Department of Labor, we're saying we're paying an employee a specific wage, and we just need to make sure that the department maintains that as well. And also, it's very important, any end of employment that's happening, whether it be through resignation, a termination, or simply a non-renewal, we also would need to know because there is action that we must take on the H-1B with both USCIS, as well as the Department of Labor. next slide please and our c gps website is a great resource that's available to you for information on hosting h1b employees we do have quite a bit of information on how to navigate through the terra dada portal for sponsorship requests we do have some recordings on there and there's an FAQ section as well. We would ask that you take a look at the I++S announcements because this is where you'll find our most recent current immigration updates that we can share. Also, there's information on other visa sponsorship types for your department. So the J1, the O1, TN as well. Recently, we've added a new link for federal action updates that are taking place based on the new administration since January. And also there is a link for the Department of State, where you can check on what the current visa processing wait times are with the consulates abroad. And as always, our team is here to support you, and we are available to answer any questions that you might have regarding the different visa sponsorships for individuals within your department. You know, always feel free to reach out to either Bradford, Morgan, or myself to review any questions or concerns that you might have with H-1-1-1-1-7. and B sponsorship, but certainly the other visa types as well. Pardon me. Still muted. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and close out that recording.
CGPS | Hosting International Employees (H-1B Status)
From Bradford Rush March 06, 2025
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Join the Scholar Services team in the Center for Global Programs and Services to learn or review the process for hosting H-1B employees at UD.
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