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Your LCA Is a Public Document That Directly Affects Your Rights. Have You Ever Read It?
During H-1B registration season, there is a document that directly governs your wage, your working conditions, and your legal status; and that most H-1B professionals have never seen. The Labor Condition Application is the attestation your employer files with the Department of Labor before every H-1B petition. It states the wage your employer will pay you, your work location, and your working conditions. It is a public document, and you have the right to inspect it under 20 C.F.R. § 655.760. If it doesn’t accurately reflect your actual employment terms, that discrepancy is a compliance exposure that can affect both your employer and your status.
Your Employer’s Attorney Filed the LCA That Governs Your Job. Checking Whether It’s Accurate Is Worth Doing on Your Own Behalf.
The LCA compliance issues we most often see in Personal Immigration Status Reviews:
Wage level misclassification. The prevailing wage determination underlying your LCA uses a four-tier wage system, from Level I (entry) to Level IV (fully competent/experienced). If your employer filed your LCA at a Level I wage while you perform Level III or IV duties, the wage attestation may not reflect your actual role. This can raise LCA compliance questions regardless of what your actual paycheck says.
Geographic compliance. If your work location changed - a move, a shift to remote work in a different metropolitan area, a project relocation - and your employer did not amend the LCA to reflect the new location, there may be a gap in the underlying H-1B authorization. Geographic compliance is an area DOL and USCIS actively scrutinize. Correcting it requires action by the employer, but the person affected by it is you.
Portability implications. Under AC21 portability, once your I-485 has been pending for 180 days and you have an approved (or, in many cases, still-pending) I-140, you may change employers to a position in the same or similar occupational classification without losing your priority date. Whether a new role is “same or similar” is assessed against the actual duties on file - including the LCA - not job titles. If the LCA description doesn’t match your actual duties, that analysis gets more complicated, and it’s one worth having your own attorney walk through.
Your LCA sits in your employer’s Public Access File. You can ask to review it. What you find - and what it means for your status - is the starting point of a Personal Immigration Status Review.
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
W.: islawfirm.com
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