Rudyard Kipling famously noted, "East is East, and West is
West, and never the twain shall meet." Many employers may feel
that this quote aptly describes the relationship between
immigration law and wage & hour law — certainly, it is
not often that these two areas are discussed in the same article,
let alone the same sentence. However, a recent U.S. Citizenship
& Immigration Services (USCIS) policy memorandum illustrates a
circumstance in which the government will take wage & hour
considerations into account when addressing a visa petition.
The April 12, 2017 policy memorandum binds all
USCIS personnel to follow the reasoning of the agency's earlier
Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) decision. In that AAO decision,
the agency establishes policy guidance which clarifies that USCIS
cannot approve an employment-based visa petition that is based on
an illegal or otherwise invalid employment agreement. Specifically,
before approving an employment-based visa petition, it
