New H-1b Legislation

New H-1b New legislation has recently been passed that included the “H-1b Visa Reform Act of 2004” which contains significant provisions affecting the H-1b specialty worker category. As many of you know, the H-1b is the primary visa petition that we submit for our international faculty and many of our international researchers.

The most critical portions that apply to our process are the following:

New $500 anti-fraud fee: This new fee will have to be paid by all employers (universities are not exempt). The fee will apply to H-1b petitions for new employment, so that would include current employees who need to change their status to an H-1b, new employees from abroad, and employees who are currently H-1b for other employers, but will be transferring to U.T. Regulations have not been published yet, but it does look like employees will not be able to pay this fee; it must be paid by the department.

Requirement to meet 100% of prevailing wage: This new requirement eliminates the previous allowance to meet 95% of the prevailing wage as determined by the Texas Workforce Commission.

Both these changes will go into effect on March 8, 2005 for applications and prevailing wage determinations that are submitted on or after that date. It will be important to initiate a new or transfer H-1b petition as soon as possible to be able to avoid paying the additional fee.


Personnel Updates

Along the lines of a personnel update from the International Office, Melissa Irion has been our J-1 Scholar Advisor, and Michelle Zisson has been our H-1b Employment Specialist. We have recently made changes in our procedures and job duties so that both advisors will be able to process J-1 documents and H-1b petitions. We felt it might provide continuity for the advisors to work with specific departments in all aspects. The division is for the following departments:

Melissa Irion phone: 471-2462 email: melissa@austin.utexas.edu
McCombs School of Business
Liberal Arts
Natural Sciences

Michelle Zisson phone: 471-8027 email: h1b@austin.utexas.edu
All other departments including Engineering and Law

An H-1b Training Session is scheduled on the HR Training calendar for April 13, 2005. This will be a good opportunity to get up-to-date material and training on the H-1b process.

Teri Albrecht (471-8885) and Deane Willis (471-2456) are also available for questions and issues concerning employment based work visas and green cards.

Please contact us if you have any questions.