Congress On Spring Break … What’s On Deck? (Beltway Buzz, April 5, 2024) – General Immigration

The Beltway Buzz is a weekly update summarizing labor and
employment news from inside the Beltway and clarifying how
what’s happening in Washington, D.C. could impact your
business.

Congress on Spring Break … What’s on
Deck? The U.S. Congress remains out on spring break this
week and is scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., the week
beginning April 8, 2024. With 2024 funding for the federal
government wrapped up, upon its return, Congress will turn its
attention to the myriad items that have stacked up on its to-do
list. This includes authorizing funds to rebuild Baltimore’s
Francis Scott Key Bridge and provide military aid to Ukraine.
Additionally, Congress will likely consider a business-supported
tax bill, social media legislation, the reauthorization of a
post–9/11 provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, and the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation
Administration, among other matters. At the Buzz, we will
be particularly interested in Congressional Review Act resolutions
addressing the National Labor Relations Board’s joint-employer
rule and the U.S. Department of Labor’s independent contractor
rule.

Federal Contractor News. The latest
employment-related news from the federal contracting world includes
the following:

• Federal contractor portal opens. On April 1, 2024, the
  Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) opened its
  Contractor Portal “where covered federal
  contractors and subcontractors must certify, on an annual basis,
  whether they are meeting their requirement to develop and maintain
  annual [affirmative action programs].” Covered contractors
  have until July 1, 2024, to register and certify their compliance.
  Instructions, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and how-to videos
  are provided by OFCCP.

Immigration News. The confluence of two recent
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) final
regulations—the H-1B modernization rule and the new fee
schedule—contributed to a busy week as far as immigration
policy goes:

• H-1B cap met. After extending the fiscal year (FY)
  2025 H-1B registration period, USCIS has announced that it “has received enough
  electronic registrations for unique beneficiaries” to meet the
  FY 2025 cap for H-1B visas. According to the announcement, pursuant
  to a random selection process, USCIS has “notified all
  prospective petitioners with selected beneficiaries that they are
  eligible to file an H-1B cap-subject petition for such
  beneficiaries.” USCIS began accepting petitions on April 1,
  2024.

• New fee schedule in effect. USCIS was quick to remind
  filers that their petitions are subject to the new fee schedule that USCIS adopted on January
  31, 2024. This new rule schedule went into effect on April 1, 2024,
  after a federal judge denied a legal challenge to enjoin the rule.
  According to USCIS, “Petitions postmarked
  on or after April 1, 2024, must include the new fees or [USCIS]
  will not accept them.”

• Work authorization extended. On April 4, 2024, USCIS
  announced the issuance of a temporary final
  rule to “increase the automatic extension period for certain
  employment authorization documents (EADs) from up to 180 days to up
  to 540 days.” According to the news release, the rule
  “will prevent already work-authorized noncitizens from having
  their employment authorization and documentation lapse while
  waiting for USCIS to adjudicate their pending EAD renewal
  applications and better ensure continuity of operations for U.S.
  employers.” The rule applies to “(1) applicants who timely
  and properly filed their Form I-765 applications on or after Oct.
  27, 2023, if the application is still pending on April 8, 2024; and
  (2) applicants who timely and properly file their Form I-765
  application on or after April 8, 2024 and on or before Sept. 30,
  2025.”

MSHA Silica Rule on the Way. Late last week,
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed its
review of the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA)
final silica rule. This means that a final rule is likely to be
published in the Federal Register at any moment. William K. Doran and Margaret S. Lopez have the details on the changes proposed by MSHA.

Justice William O. Douglas. On April 4, 1939,
the U.S. Senate confirmed William O. Douglas as a member of the
Supreme Court of the United States. A Columbia Law
School–trained attorney, Douglas spent time as a law
professor at Yale before President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
appointed him to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In
1939, when Justice Louis D. Brandeis retired from the Supreme
Court, FDR nominated Douglas to be Brandeis’s replacement. On
the Court, Douglas developed a reputation as a civil libertarian
(he wrote the majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut,
381 U.S. 479 (1965), relating to privacy and the use of
contraceptives), and he advanced novel legal theories, including an
expansive view of standing. Dissenting in a1972 decision, Douglas
wrote, “Contemporary public concern for protecting
nature’s ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of
standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own
preservation.” During his time on the Court, Douglas was the
subject of two failed impeachment attempts, one in 1953 for his
vote to stay the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were
convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, and again in 1970,
allegedly for his judicial opinions, as well as his controversial
“side hustle” writings and activities. Aside from his
jurisprudence, Douglas holds several Supreme Court records that
still stand today. He served longer—thirty-six years, from
1939 to 1975—than any other Supreme Court justice. He also
had more marriages (four) and more divorces (three) than any other
justice. Douglas also wrote more than thirty books, which some
claim were necessary to pay for the divorces and settlements.

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