BEWARE!!!

Please go through the list of employers who have been debarred from sponsoring H-1B/PERM Labor Certification/H-2B until the debarment period. Make sure you are not working with any of these companies/law firms who may have provided false hope until now! DOL's aggressive prsuit of the disclosure of the debarred employer does not end there. This enforcement actions are likely to flourish in a full blown manner, particularly begining from January 1, 2009.

H-1B Debarred/Disqualified List of Employers This list is effective as of August 7, 2008. Employer Name Willful Violator Debarment Period Amtech Electrocircuits Jay Patel 701 Minnesota Drive Troy, MI 48083 YES 3/1/2008 to 2/28/2010 API Accounting & Computer Consulting Tina Chiang 17870 Castleton St. Suite 116 City of Industry, CA 917748 YES 4/1/2008 to 3/31/2010 Cottages of the Oaks, LLC Thousand Oaks, CA YES 3/1/2007 to 2/28/2009 Crown Medical Clinics, Inc. d/b/a Crown Medical Clinic, Inc. Alfred Aflatooni 2641 Cherry Avenue Bremerton, WA 98310 YES 8/23/2007 to 8 /22/2009 Dayton Public Schools 115 S. Ludlow Street Dayton, OH 45402-1812 YES 2/1/2008 to 1/31/2009 Faircount, Inc. d/b/a Faircount Media Group Ross Jobson 701 N. Westshore Boulevard Tampa, FL 33609 NO 2/1/2008 to 1/31/2009 Gurukrupa LLC d/b/a Bestway Inn & Suites/Days Inn Rohit Patel YES 10/1/2007 to 9/30/2009 IT Wizards, Inc. Praveen Annavarapu YES 10/1/2007 to 9/30/2009 LNBJ Construction Company, Inc. Lyle Peters 2642 Briarwood Drive Marietta, GA 30067 YES 3/1/2008 to 2/28/2010 Mai Logic Inc. Jason Hou 47697 Westinghouse Drive, #200 Fremont, CA 94539 YES 12/1/2005 to 11/30/2008 (3 year Debarment) Medical Clinics of America, P.C. Sirajuddin Khaja 7550 Hohman Avenue Suite 300 Munster, IN 46321 YES 6/1/2007 to 5/31/2009 Morex Enterprises Inc. Abraham Yadegaran 1442 E. Washington Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90021 YES 3/1/2008 to 2/28/2010 Skillsoft International, Inc. a/k/a Skillsoft Inc. John Kemp YES 10/1/2007 to 9/30/2009 Software Research Group, Inc. Raghu Daripalli 485 Rt. 1 South Suite 240 Iselin, NJ 08830 YES 6/1/2008 to 5/31/2009 (1 Year Debarment) SUNSPCS Management, Inc. a subsidiary of International Microcell Communications, Inc. & David Safai, Individually and as President 2425 S. Eastern Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90040 Yes 6/1/2008 to 5/31/2010 Technocrest Systems, Incorporated Robert Babine 3125 S. Pickwick Place Springfield, MO 65804 NO 3/1/2008 to 2/28/2009 Technologies500 Holdings & Edu., Inc. Formerly d/b/a Cybersoftec,Com, Inc. and Cybersoftec, Inc., and Nick & Narendra Mandalapa YES 10/1/2007 to 9/30/2009 Tech-Start LLC d/b/a Tech-Start and Dr. Surajiet Khanna as Chairman/CEO and Individually 5241 Wilson Mills Road, Suite 25 Richmond Heights, OH 44143 NO 3/1/2008 to 2/28/2009

Department of Labor

Employment and Training Administration

Office of Foreign Labor Certification

Program Debarments

Permanent Labor Certification Program

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification maintains the list below of debarred employers, attorneys, and/or agents from the Permanent Labor Certification Program. For more information on debarments under the Permanent Labor Certification Program, see 20 CFR 656.31(f). Permanent Labor Certification Debarment List
Employer Name	Employer Location	Start of Debarment	End of Debarment
LawLogix	San Francisco, CA	May 15, 2008	May 14, 2011
Academy Roofing	Aurora, Co	June 17, 2008	June 17, 2011
JLC Concrete	Aurora, Co	June 17, 2008	June 17, 2011
Marvel Concrete	Lakewood, Co	June 17, 2008	June, 17, 2011

H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification maintains the list below of debarred employers from the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program. For more information on debarments under the H-2A Program, see 20 CFR 655.110. H-2A Labor Certification Debarment List
Employer Name	Employer Location	Start of Debarment	End of Debarment
Global Horizons Manpower, Inc.	Los Angeles, CA	July 1, 2006	June 30, 2009

Post More such that there can be awareness among the employee and candidates looking for job

Full blown list is expected towards the end of the year and will be updated regularly after that!

Mitra haru,

It has been more than six months since I applied PERM through a lawyer in NYC under EB-2 catagory. Employer says he has not got any information so far. Is it normal that even in EB-2 catagory it is taking so long ? Luckily my firm's name is not in the above list. Pls help ! Your suggestions/comments will be highly appreciated.

It won't take 6 long months for PERM approval unless something is wrong. Ideally, i believe it'll take around 4 months max. for PERM starting from scratch. check with employer or your lawyer ASAP.

Berojgar Mitra,

Thanks for your comment. I enquired about it with my lawyer/employer and they say b'coz of lots of audit going on there is a backlog. There is no way a candidate can check the status. Are there any friends out there who experienced the same situation in EB-2 category ? Please help me with your valuable suggestions/views. Thanks !

Most of the cases are backlogged and PERM cases are also taking much longer these days! I know few people whose PERM cases have been pending for more than 6 months!

 

Istamitra jyu,

If you know more about blacklisted law-firms or any other related news regarding PERM pls post it here. I am really desperate to know more. Thanks for your informations.

As mentioned earlier they will release all the names of the companies on a regular basis starting January '09 and I will post is as we get the updates.

Latest news regarding PERM is that the comment period for the final modified version of its ETA 9089 form which they have scheduled to launch on January '09 has ended. They will publish the text of the final version sometimes soon.

Other News:

Huge PERM Audit Backlog Affecting "Liberal" Approach of PERM Application: Make sure to read the second bullet point where one law firm has been audited for approximately 3,700 PERM applications from March of this year!!!

According to the OFLC, as of July 15, 2008, they were processing the audit cases of priority date March 2007 PERM applications, and the processing queue of the audit cases were determined not by the dates of the audit notification issuance but by the priority dates, the dates when the PERM applications were filed. The report did not indicate that they made distinctions in audit processing queue by the different causes of the audit decisions. Accordingly, presumedly, once the audit notifications are issued for whaever reasons, the cases are likely to go to the end of the pending audit queue! Such processing backlog should scare the employers in handling new applications. When there were practically no audits, some employers had taken a very "liberal" approach in terms of the qualification requirements for the positions. Even though the Job Zone was restricted to a bachelor's degree, the employers filed their cases in EB-2 requiring a master's degree or bachelor's degree plus five years of experience with some success, because the risk was minimal at the time consideringthe fact that the current standard is "normal" which is not clearly defined and the DOL has been adjudicating the Job Zone issues in a more flexible manner. Besides, when a case was audited, the OFLC had taken to complete the audit cases. The current audit backlog and processing time delays have changed the landscape for the PERM strategies from the liberal approach to the convervative approach owing to the unusually high risk involved when a case is audited for whatever reasons, forcing the employers to wait and wait for over a year or longer to get the decisions. The risk is likely to increase beginning from January 1, 2009 when the DOL is scheduled to implement a new PERM form which replaces the standard of "normal" by the more clearly fixed standard of "Job Zone" and those PERM applications that exceeded the Job Zones will face increased risk of audit on the issue of business necessity. There may be some employers and their represenatatives who may continue to practice, indiscriminately and without a proper consideration of the changing environment, the way they had been handling PERM cases in the past at the cost of their alien employees/clients' expenses and suffering from the protracted legal process under the environment of continuing huge backlog in audit cases.

The scale of audit decisions appears to be very overwhelming. According to a source of information which has just been released by the DOL, one law firm has been audited approximately 3,700 PERM applications out of approximately a total of 7,551 PERM applications which they had filed betweeen some time March or a little earlier or May 2008 and July 15, 2008. The record reflects that 49% of the total PERM applications filed by the firm were audited. These cases were apparently counted when the OFLC released information that as of July 15, 2008, they were processing the audit cases of March 2007. Remember that they were just processing March 2007 priority date audit cases as of July 15, 2008!! Go figure! One does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the level of risk involved with the "liberal" strategy in the PERM application. The labor certification backlogs are likely to repeat itself slowly being pulled into the old days when the people had to wait a long time to get a labor certification application certified.

Thanks for the information, Istamitra. The scenario looks gloomy. I don't know when the PERM that I filed in Feb.08 will be certified !?

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Additional Seven companies have been notified of potential debarment for unlawful employment practices. The have been found to be unlawfully employing persons without employment authorization.

The following seven companies are being considered for debarment:

• Bynum Brothers Home Improvement Co. - Buffalo, N.Y.
• CMC Concrete Construction, Inc. - Manassas, Va.
• Hedges Landscape Specialists Inc. d/b/a Exterior Designs, Inc. and d/b/a Performance Irrigation, LLC - Crestwood, Ky.
• Lochirco Fruit & Produce Inc. d/b/a Happy Apples - Union, Mo.
• MC Cleaning - Bangor, Maine
• Morgan Jones LLC d/b/a Jones Industrial Network and d/b/a Jones Networking - Baltimore, Md.
• Stonewall Concrete, Inc. - Manassas, Va.

More to come soon.................!