The Department of Labor (DOL)’s “iCERT” portal became mandatory on July 1, 2009 for Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) filed as part of an employer’s H-1B or E-3 petition. The most important substantive change brought about by the new procedures is that LCAs are no longer certified instantaneously by DOL. In most cases, DOL is certifying the LCA in six to seven business days after review by an analyst.
In some cases, LCAs are being denied due to failed “FEIN verification” – verification that the petitioner’s Federal Employer Identification Number is valid. This appears to primarily affect employers that only recently received their FEIN or employers that have had a corporate name change. If the LCA is denied on this basis, the employer must submit proof of the FEIN to DOL (such as the FEIN assignment letter issued by the Internal Revenue Service, and/or proof of corporate name change), wait until the DOL confirms the FEIN verification in about one week, and then resubmit a new LCA.
The result of the new iCERT procedures is that it can take significantly longer to gain certification of the LCA that is a prerequisite to filing an H-1B or E-3 petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employers are therefore advised to initiate initial H-1B and E-3 petitions and extensions as early as possible.
DOL anticipates that the PERM labor certification portion of the iCERT portal will take longer to launch than anticipated and will not be ready for deployment until after September 2009. An exact launch date is still unknown at this time.
