Perm Processing Times Continue to Lengthen

When PERM was first introduced, it was touted as providing a more efficient path to permanent residency for employment-based applicants who had historically waited many years to clear the first step to permanent residency—the labor certification. Introduced in March 2005, the Department of Labor promised that labor certifications filed pursuant to the PERM process would be adjudicated within 60 days. Barely four years later, adjudication times for a PERM labor certification have stretched to 10 months for a clean case that is not “audited.” If a case is chosen for audit, which can occur for any reason, including no reason at all, your wait time will be much longer, around two years.

The moral to this story is to start the PERM case as early as possible. If the PERM case is filed more than 365 days prior to the foreign national’s H-1B max-out date, which is the end of the sixth year of H-1B status, the foreign national can remain in the US pursuant to H-1B classification for as long as it takes the foreign national to attain permanent resident status. Further, the date the PERM case is filed locks in the foreign national’s “priority date,” which is the date that he or she “gets in line” for an immigrant visa. As immigrant visa numbers are severely backlogged in several employment–based categories, the earlier a foreign national’s priority date, the sooner he or she will be eligible to receive an immigrant visa.

Updated PERM processing times are available on the iCert page at http://icert.doleta.gov/.

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