Changes In Employment Small Business Owners Need to Know

by Robert Goodman

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What happens if an amendment obligation is triggered and an amendment is not filed?

 The results could be that a petition to extend the H-1B status of an employee is denied on the grounds that insofar as the employer failed to file an amended petition, the employer caused the employee to fall out of authorized employment status. This problem could also occur during greencard processing and lead even to the revocation of the approved H-1B petition.

In short, employers could find that at the end of the day subtle shifts in the job description of an H-1B employee could end up jeopardizing that employee’s immigration status.

Hiring foreign nationals is not like hiring American citizens and permanent residents

Which brings us back to the relationship between employers and immigration counsel and our take away for this article, which is that hiring foreign nationals is not like hiring American citizens and permanent residents and requires employers to develop internal controls to address changes in the manner in which a foreign national is being employed.

It is simply not feasible in the increasingly severe immigration environment that prevails in the U.S. for employers to delay addressing potentially material changes in a job description until an H-1B needs an extension or a visa application or adjustment of status application is filed pursuant to green card processing.

What is required is an ongoing relationship with immigration counsel and the implementation of standard operating procedures that would allow Human Resources to anticipate as early as possible changes in the terms and conditions of employment that could trigger amendment obligations.   

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