Trump administration resumes visa processing despite shutdown

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

After a month of halted operations, the U.S. Department of Labor will begin processing necessary documents for visa and permanent resident applications again.

While agencies like the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are fee-funded, the Department of Labor provides necessary documentation in order to be approved for a visa or permanent resident application. The Department’s Foreign Labor Application Gateway provides prevailing wage documentation and labor condition applications for H-1B, H-2A and H-2B visa workers.

“The Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s (OFLC) Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) system is now accessible and permits system users to prepare and submit new applications as well as submit and receive information associated with their applications pending a final determination,” the Department of Labor’s website reads.

Employers must file labor certification applications to hire workers on H-1B visas, promising that hiring the foreign worker will not negatively affect American worker’s wages or conditions. These applications have to be approved by the Department of Labor before an H-1B petition can be filed.

Similarly, employers are required to file prevailing wage documentation for H-2A and H-2B visa applicants. For the first month of the government shutdown, these operations were at a standstill.

Anna Gorisch, founder and managing partner at Kendall Immigration Law, said her operations were entirely halted during the Labor Department’s closures.

“It’s becoming a problem with the government closure because there are some cases that can still go forward fine but anything that involves Department of Labor grounds to a halt,” Gorisch said.

Several farmworker organizations advocated for the department to open up its processing operations despite the ongoing government shutdown.

“Thanks to the efforts, data sharing, and feedback of our members and agricultural labor colleagues, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification has resumed operations despite the ongoing government shutdown,” the National Council of Agricultural Employers wrote in a post to social media.

The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association praised the Labor Department’s action to continue processing applications.

“The reopening of the DOL’s application processing system will help prevent further costly delays, minimize potential labor shortages, and provide much-needed stability for farms across the state,” the GFVGA said in a press release.

Additionally, the federal labor agency is resuming work on the Program Electronic Review Management, or PERM, processes. It can take as much as two years to complete a permanent resident application with the Department of Labor.

Employers who go through the process will often place the foreign worker in various categories of employment-based visas.

The PERM process requires employers to go through a prevailing wage determination process that calculates how much an employee should be paid based on the market rate for a certain job. These calculations must be done by the employer and approved by the Department of Labor.

The U.S. Department of Labor did not clarify whether it would use existing reserve funds to operate labor certification and permanent resident application documents.

The department will be be dealing with a backlog that predated the suspension of activity caused by the government shutdown.