The Department of Labor announced an iCERT service interruption on Jan. 1:

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

We sincerely apologize for the major service interruption in the iCERT System early in the morning of January 1, 2019. Due to overwhelming filing demand, the Department’s technology staff is working diligently to investigate the cause of the system outage and has temporarily taken the iCERT System down for the remainder of January 1st and until further notice. The Department will provide another update on the status of the iCERT System around 12:00PM EST, January 2nd, and separate advance public notice regarding when the iCERT System will be operational once again.

We understand there were H-2B groups and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) engaged with DOL during this event. They report the system “crashed sometime after midnight on January 1,” preventing H-2B, H-1B, and other filings.

As of this writing, the entirety of the legal and policy implications of this disruption are not fully known. Please check back, as we will be adding updates.

^˘ Not admitted to the practice of law.