Comment by proberts
8 hours ago
I think everyone would agree that the PERM process is an awful process for both applicants and for employers. The job is supposed to be treated as an open position and the recruitment is supposed to be done in good faith. So, if a qualified, willing, able, and available U.S. worker applies for a PERM job, the employer either must hire this person or terminate the PERM process and wait at least 6 months before restarting it. Now, where there are multiple openings for the position, then it's possible for an employer to hire a U.S. worker without terminating the PERM process for the foreign national employee.
> The job is supposed to be treated as an open position and the recruitment is supposed to be done in good faith. So, if a qualified, willing, able, and available U.S. worker applies for a PERM job, the employer either must hire this person or terminate the PERM process and wait at least 6 months before restarting it.
The "or" part in the last sentence is worth noting. At the place I've worked, the employer invokes the second clause (i.e. PERM process is canceled/suspended, and they try again 6-12 months later).
The way it worked there was: Employer publishes an open req. We get lots of resumes. Manager calls the few people who may be a match. Then the manager has to justify why the person doesn't have the skills and the process continues.
Sometimes (and this is likely a bit random), the government does an audit, where they get the details of all who applied. Then they call the manager and start grilling him on why a particular candidate was rejected. If the manager can convince them, the PERM process continues. If not, they fail the Department of Labor Certification and the PERM process is canceled.
The person doesn't lose his job. They're just ineligible and need to apply again after a certain window.
I do know folks applying for PERM who were rejected twice because of this. The insane thing was that their roles (EE with specific specialty) were legitimately hard to fill, whereas other people in the team doing trivial scripting easily got through PERM.
The process is messed up in many ways.
Generally lawyers need to be involved to make sure any rejections are compliant. There's a whole cottage industry around this.
Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfuscated or artificial barriers are put up purposefully to disqualify candidates.
I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years.
> I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years.
This is a very SW mindset, and makes no sense in other circumstances.
If my company canceled a large SW project, and laid off a lot of SW folks, why should that prevent them from sponsoring someone to work on nanoelectronics?
Since we are doing wishes and grievances, why have PERM at all?
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It is well known at the companies that I've worked for that there is no good faith at all in the process and it's basically ritual to justify the application.
Since they are clearly violating the law, how can I report this?
If they've complied with the DOL regulations and requirements, what makes you think they're violating the law?
Explicitly and openly not acting in good faith.
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The government agencies involved are the DOL and USCIS so you would report abuses/violations to them.