Department of State Contacting H-1B and L-1 Petitioners

The Department of State (DOS) Visa Office has confirmed that the Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) has started verifying the information contained in nonimmigrant visa applications, including H-1B and L-1 petitions.

Background:  As you may know, the DOS requires that employers submit a duplicate copy of nonimmigrant petitions when filing with USCIS (this is why employers have to sign 2 sets of forms).  USCIS sends this duplicate copy to the KCC, where it is scanned into the Petition Information Management Service (PIMS) database.  When beneficiaries apply for visa stamps at U.S. Consulates abroad, the Consular Officers are required to access the PIMS database to verify the details of the approved petition.  In addition to the information submitted by the petitioner on the I-129, many of the PIMS reports also contain information from DOS' Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU). The FPU performs research on petitioners, and as part of a pilot project, the FPU, on a random basis, verifies factual aspects related to the beneficiaries and their proposed U.S. employment.

Petitioner (employer) Reviews: As part of its effort to create a record of the petitioner, the KCC may verify petitioner information including, but not limited to, review of the company website, company contact information, and use of Google earth to confirm that an office exists in an appropriate physical location. Once the base petitioner record is complete, the KCC will not normally re-verify the petitioner information for two years.

Beneficiary (employee) Reviews:  The KCC may also verify beneficiary data.  These checks are completed at random, primarily through telephone calls to the petitioner. These calls will generally occur shortly after the petition is approved, but can occur much later.  The caller may ask to speak to an authorized official, and will then ask a series of questions.

The questions will likely cover both petitioner and beneficiary data and may include, but not be limited to:

1.      Whether the petitioner, in fact, submitted the petition;

2.      When the petitioner was incorporated;

3.      The physical location of the petitioner;

4.      Number of employees;

5.      Names of shareholders;

6.      Location of Attorney of Record;

7.      General information regarding the petitioner's operations and business plan;

8.      Beneficiary's proposed job title and duties;

9.      Location of proposed postion; and

10.  Beneficiary's proposed salary.

If you are contacted by the KCC contractor, Please note the following:

�         You should request the name of the KCC contractor with whom you are speaking;

�         You should take notes of the questions asked and your responses; and

�         You should notify our office as soon as possible.

Please also note that if you are asked for information that you cannot provide without further research, please indicate this to the KCC contractor. You should never guess or estimate about any of the requested information, as an incorrect guess could negatively impact not only the specific petition, but other petitions filed by the company.  You should also feel free to locate your copy of the I-129 petition and review it prior to answering any questions.