H-1B visa: Seven businesses drop lawsuit against US federal agency

A group of seven American businesses Monday announced to have dropped an H-1B lawsuit against the US Citizenship and Immigration Services after the federal agency agreed to accept and adjudicate previous decisions on foreign work visas.

In March, the American Immigration Council, on behalf of the seven businesses, had filed a suit, challenging USCIS’ arbitrary rejection of H-1B petitions filed after October 1 solely because the H-1B workers’ intended employment start date fell after October 1.

The lawsuit alleged that based on this timeline, USCIS created an absurd choice: foreign workers needed to start on October 1 (and not a day later) or the US employer had to misrepresent the intended employment start-date by “back-dating” the petition.