TWC Outsourcing Labor Certification Processing
Posted Jun 04, 2004

Outside contractors have been trained to process labor certifications at the state level in Texas with adequate supervision by government officials, as required by law. In an effort to reduce the backlog in labor certification applications pending with the Texas State Workforce Administration, known as the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), TWC is utilizing the services of an outside contractor, known as Enterject, Inc. They have been trained by the TWC, which continues to have a substantial backlog of regular, non-RIR cases pending at the local level.

The backlog appears to be primarily attributable to the influx of filings made in response to the 245(i) deadline of April 30, 2001. As of the time of this writing, TWC is still working on regular LC cases that were filed on or before that date, as they have been processing cases filed in April 2001 for several years now. In December 2003, the backlog of regular cases filed on April 30, 2001 was 5,600 cases. This should be contrasted to the backlog of 6,000 cases which were filed after April 30, 2001 for the entire period through the time where the cases were counted in 2003.

The TWC has sent regular labor certifications filed from April 27, 2001 forward to Enterject, Inc., as well as RIR and Special Handling cases filed from September 1, 2003 forward. Enterject is starting work by contacting the employer / sponsors or representatives to determine whether the case is still viable. Given that the April 2001 cases have been pending in excess of three years, some of the employers may have gone out of business or may no longer wish to offer the position to the beneficiary so many years after filing. This may weed out a large number of cases and reduce the workload. After this has been completed, the outsourced company will work on the cases in the order of filing. The contractor has sixteen employees, operating five days per week, in two shifts. This should allow for at least some reduction in the backlog.

Once the contractor has finished reviewing cases, these cases will be sent to the Department of Labor regional office in Dallas, Texas for regional processing. This process may change once the DOL backlog reduction centers become operational. This change in labor certification processing is limited to Texas and labor certification cases. It should not be confused with the USCIS processing of immigration filings through the Texas Service Center or USCIS district offices.