H-1B Registration Season Is Coming. Here Is What Your Employer Must Tell You; And What They Are Not Required To

H-1B registration season is the moment every visa-holding professional pays the most attention to immigration. The lottery is real, the stakes are significant, and the anxiety is legitimate. What is often missing from the conversations H-1B employees have during registration season is a clear understanding of the distinction between what your employer’s attorney is managing and what you have the right to know independently. That distinction matters most in registration season, because it is the moment when what the company needs and what you need are most likely to diverge.

H-1B Registration Runs on the Company’s Workforce Calendar. Your Personal Rights Inside That Process Are Yours to Claim on Your Own.

What your employer is required to do: maintain a Public Access File for your H-1B position, which your employer must make available for inspection under 20 C.F.R. § 655.760. It contains the Labor Condition Application (LCA), the prevailing wage determination, and related wage documentation. You have a right to inspect it. You have a right to know whether your LCA was filed at a wage level consistent with your role and geographic area. If your actual wage falls below the LCA-certified wage, that is a compliance issue; and it is one that affects you directly. Your employer’s attorney manages the company’s LCA filings. Whether those filings are accurate is worth verifying independently.

What your employer is not required to do: tell you whether your credential profile might support an O-1A extraordinary ability classification that would take you out of the lottery process altogether. Tell you whether the specialty occupation description in your LCA accurately reflects your actual role; a mismatch can create status exposure that your employer’s attorney has no obligation to flag for you. Advise you on whether an EB-1A or National Interest Waiver self-petition could open a green card pathway that doesn’t depend on your employer’s sponsorship. These are questions that call for your own attorney, because your employer’s attorney’s professional duty runs to the company, not to you.

I.S. Law Firm’s independent counsel practice was built to help answer these questions during registration season. A Confidential Status Review; separate from anything your employer’s attorney does — looks at your current status, your registration posture, your alternative pathway options, and your rights under the LCA. It is a private conversation between you and your attorney. Your employer does not participate. Your HR department is not involved.

H-1B registration season is one of the highest-attention moments of the immigration calendar for hundreds of thousands of professionals. It’s also the moment when the gap between employer-side representation and independent counsel is most consequential.

Your Employer Has a Lawyer for This. Shouldn’t You? → Book Your Confidential Case Review

Ismail Shahtakhtinski · Founder & Managing Attorney

I.S. Law Firm · Founder and Investor Immigration

Confidential One-on-One Strategy Review

P.: (703) 527-1779

E.: law@islawfirm.com

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