A federal judge ruled US Citizenship and Immigration Services improperly denied an H-1B petition after the agency claimed the position did not qualify as a “specialty occupation,” Forbes [1] repor [1]ted [1].
The plaintiff, InspectionXpert Corp., or IXC, filed an H-1B petition for a quality engineer position that was selected in the H-1B lottery for the 2019 fiscal year.
Responding to a request for evidence, IXC provided 250 pages of materials in support of the engineering professional it sought; after a second request for evidence, IXC provided an evaluation of the position from a professor of materials design and innovation at the University of Buffalo-SUNY.
USCIS dismissed the relevance of evidence provided and rejected the petition., claiming the position did not require a degree in a specific subspecialty and could be filled by someone with a degree in more than one discipline, such as different types of engineering degrees.
The judge ruled USCIS may not use an arbitrary definition of a specialty occupation when evaluating the degrees relevant to an H-1B position.
Forbes contributor Stuart Anderson explains the ruling in Forbes [2].