On 20th November, the Homeland Security Department had issued an important draft policy memorandum (“PM”) having the planned guidance on the definition of same or similar under the INA Section 204(j) which is equal to the employment mobility of overseas workers sponsored for the legal permanent residency by the US employer. This PM is open for the public comment till 4th January 2016.
The latest PM has offered a few obvious rules about how to find out whether the latest position is in the same or similar job-related classification as the original position. The PM had initially repeated that the applicable standard for determining whether the latest position is in the same or similar job-related categorization as the old position is by the predominance of the evidence. It had also repeated that the USCIS would make such determinations based upon the totality of the situations. It then explained about how the panel of judges shall make such determinations and provides a detailed background of the Standard Occupational Classification system for dividing all occupations.
It had also summarized the regulations which are as follows: the initial two digits of an SOC is the important group classification, the third digit is the minor group categorization, the fourth and the fifth digit together are the broad profession, and the sixth digit is the detailed profession.
The PM then offered numerous regulations of thumb that shall generally find out whether or not a location is in the same or similar job-related classification.
Positions within the same SOC code shall generally be treated as being in the same or similar job-related classifications. And positions with different detailed job-related codes that are in the same wide occupation shall also heavily towards the favorable finding. There are some exceptions to this regulation.
