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Under the heading “Transparency for U.S. Workers,” the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) uploaded five reports today containing comprehensive data regarding its H-1B and Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) adjudications. The H-1B reports “provide information about the hiring practices of employers who petition for foreign national workers.” The H-1B trend report contains statistics about the H-1B program from 2007 through 2017. The data listed in this report includes H-1B beneficiary country of birth, age, occupational category, industry, compensation, and education level. The other two H-1B reports are nearly 1,000 pages each and list every company with approved H-1B petitions in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. These reports contain the employers’ total number of approved H-1B petitions, and the average salaries and types of degrees held by the H-1B beneficiaries. The EAD reports list the total number of approved EADs for each immigration category where employment authorization is available to foreign nationals. The reports are separated into immigration classes that are employment-authorized by statute and those immigration classes that are employment-authorized at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The release of these reports coincided with a USCIS teleconference listening session today on the April 17, 2017, Presidential Executive Order, Buy American and Hire American. To review a discussion of this EO, please see our previous post. During the session, USCIS encouraged participants to share their ideas on how to make sure employment-based visa programs are not negatively affecting U.S. workers. USCIS said it was especially interested in feedback regarding the H, L, and E visa classifications and how to utilize those visa programs to protect U.S. workers and wages. USCIS also solicited ideas as to how to ensure H-1Bs (which are subject to an annual quota) are awarded to the best and the brightest.

USCIS announced that DHS and USCIS were working on memoranda to provide new guidance to protect the interests of U.S. workers, including through the prevention of fraud and abuse. USCIS emphasized that all employment-based programs are under review and that the goal was to ensure that these programs are designed to serve U.S. interests and are prioritizing the interests of U.S. workers.

The H-1B and EAD reports are available on USCIS’s website at https://www.uscis.gov/buy-american-hire-american-putting-american-workers-first.