USCIS Claims Duplicate Registrations Properly Denied

Shortly after the results were released for the H1B registration lottery, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) received reports from a number of immigration attorneys who had received denial notices for some clients’ registrations based upon the existence of duplicate registrations (i.e., more than one registration submitted for a foreign national by the same company, or a related company). AILA reported the matter to officials at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as a possible technical glitch in the registration system, and encouraged attorneys with such duplicate denials to provide case-specific details directly to the USCIS. The USCIS, in turn, agreed to investigate the matter.

Response from USCIS

On April 7, 2020, the USCIS responded to AILA that, after investigating the matter, it has concluded that the duplicates were properly denied. In short, the USCIS found that the denials reported mainly involved cases where the attorney had submitted a registration on behalf of the company client for a particular beneficiary, and then the company filed a registration on its own for the same beneficiary.

The USCIS explained as follows:

“Our teams examined your submission(s) carefully and determined that your duplicate registration invalidations were not due to a technical issue but rather were properly identified, and invalidated, as duplicate registrations. The most common reason for invalidation is that there is a submission from 1) the Registrant (the prospective petitioner); and 2) the Representative on behalf of the Registrant (with associated G-28). This means that the Representative submitted one registration for the named beneficiary on the Registrant’s (client) behalf, and the Registrant separately submitted an additional registration for the same beneficiary without the Representative. Therefore, two registrations were submitted for the same Registrant and beneficiary and both registrations were invalidated …”

Conclusion

The USCIS indicated it would respond directly to attorneys who had submitted case-specific information on registration denials. Attorneys and employers with duplicate registration denials, who feel the denials were made in error, should contact the USCIS.

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