USCIS is challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications

Starting this summer, employers began noticing that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications. Cases that would have sailed through the approval process in earlier years ground to a halt under requests for new paperwork. The number of challenges — officially known as “requests for evidence” or RFEs — are up 44 percent compared to last year, according to statistics from USCIS. The percentage of H-1B applications that have resulted in RFEs this year are at the highest level they’ve been since 2009, and by absolute number are considerably higher than any year for which the agency provided statistics.

In the meantime, the uncertainly alone is taking a toll on those who rely on the visas to work. Some applicants whose cases remained unresolved by Oct. 1, the annual effective date for new visas, have been sent home from their jobs. After the recent terrorist attack in New York, Trump called for the elimination of another visa lottery program – the Diversity Visa Lottery – saying immigration should be merit-based.

There are ample signs that the Trump administration has a broader overhaul in mind. It staffed the USCIS with those who worked for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a longtime critic of H-1B visas who in January proposed scrapping the H-1B lottery altogether in favor of a system prioritizing higher-paid jobs. A spokesperson for USCIS says that plan is still being considered. In April, Trump issued an executive order asking federal agencies to increase their scrutiny of the program. In a briefing with reporters at the time, a senior administration official floated the idea that administrative steps like raising application fees could also serve to reshape the program without the need for new laws or regulations. 

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