USCIS Now Formally Requiring Amended Petitions When H-1B Worksite Changes

On April 9, 2015, the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a binding, precedential ruling that all U.S. employers must file an amended petition with the agency whenever an H-1B employee moves to a worksite location which was not specified on the underlying Labor Condition Application (LCA) attached to the original petition filing.

The AAO decision formally supports USCIS and DOL regulations and affirms a trend in policy which has been gaining momentum over the past several years. In 2003, an official at USCIS headquarters wrote a nonbinding letter in which he opined that an amended petition might not be required when an H-1B employee moves to a new worksite, provided that a new LCA was approved by the DOL and posted at the new worksite before the H-1B employee arrived there. Since that time, the USCIS has often allowed employers to follow this strategy when H-1B employees moved, without ever