Employment and Training Administration January 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

An H-2B nonimmigrant is admitted temporarily to the United States to perform temporary nonagricultural labor or services. The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (DOL or ETA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) simultaneously are proposing changes to the procedures for the issuance of H-2B visas. Under this proposed rule, H-2B petitions filed with DHS, with the exception of workers in logging, the entertainment industry, or professional athletics, will require employers to satisfy specific attestations concerning labor market issues. These attestations have been developed by the DOL and are included in this rule and are incorporated in the DHS regulation. In addition, the DOL will receive information on petitions that have been approved and received final adjudication from the DHS. The DOL will be conducting post-adjudication audits of attestations submitted in support of selected approved H-2B petitions received from the DHS.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor (Department or DOL) is issuing this Notice to announce that DOL has moved its foreign labor certification field staff in the Atlanta and Chicago Regional Offices to the new Atlanta and Chicago National Processing Centers. This Notice provides the public in the Atlanta and Chicago regions with contact information regarding these two new processing centers. All foreign labor certification processing activities previously conducted in the Atlanta and Chicago Regional Offices will now be assumed by the corresponding Atlanta or Chicago National Processing Centers. The regulation to implement the re-engineered permanent labor certification program was published in the Federal Register on December 27, 2004. The National Processing Centers will continue current functions on an interim basis and ETA will provide additional guidance as to the handling of cases which will be filed under the new rule as well as backlogged permanent labor certification cases. Employers in the Atlanta and Chicago regions requesting H-2A workers should simultaneously submit H-2A applications to their appropriate State Workforce Agency (SWA) and respective National Processing Center. These H-2A applications should no longer be submitted to ETA's Atlanta or Chicago Regional Offices. Employers in the Atlanta and Chicago regions requesting either permanent or H-2B workers should continue, until ETA publishes future guidance on this issue, to file permanent and H-2B applications with the appropriate SWA.