Major victory for H-1B employers after addition to speciality occupation list

In a major victory for H-1B employers, a federal court has approved a settlement under which the US Citizenship and Immigration Services has agreed to qualify market research analyst as a speciality occupation for the purposes of determining H-1B visa application of a foreign professional.

Based on its prior interpretation of the Occupational Outlook Handbook — a Department of Labour’s Bureau of Labour Statistics publication profiling hundreds of occupations in the US job market — the USCIS was determining that market research analysts did not qualify as a “specialty occupation”.

The settlement approved by the federal district court in the Northern District of California would now let companies request that the USCIS reopen and re-adjudicate their denied H-1B petitions.