Immigration Lawyers Toolbox Confronts H-1B Uncertainty, PERM Layoffs, and the Truth About EB-1A

Milow LeBlanc

5 days ago

6 min read

Judy Hinh Wong practices business immigration in the Bay Area for corporate clients that run from small startups up to mid-size technology companies. Her work covers employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant filings, PERM, the H, L and O categories, and the talent mobility and risk management conversations underneath all of it. She is past chair of AILA NorCal and sits on the planning committee for this year's California Chapters Conference.

On Episode 493 of the Immigration Lawyers Toolbox podcast, host John Kasravi asks her what she is seeing on the ground. Her answers deal with what the policy announcements do to cases already in motion. Layoffs are breaking PERM filings. Clients who did everything correctly still cannot be told with any confidence that they are safe.

Here is what stood out from the conversation, and why it matters to anyone advising employers or sponsored workers.

Public Charge Scrutiny Has Reached Employment-Based Cases

The affidavit of support and public charge guidance is written broadly enough to reach nearly every applicant, so employment-based practitioners cannot treat it as somebody else's problem. Wong calls the line of questioning invasive and places it inside the wider pattern she sees from the government right now: heavier scrutiny, more enforcement, and more compliance burden landing on categories that used to move on documentation alone.

Her tech-sector clients feel the exposure less acutely. They have offer letters and salary histories, so the benefits question is not where their risk concentrates. Wong is clear that this does not make it a non-issue. It means another file to build and another place where an adjudicator can decide the record looks thin.

PERM TAKEAWAY: Public charge now reaches the adjustment stage of PERM-based green cards. Update intake questionnaires and client FAQs before an RFE forces the conversation.

The Travel and Adjustment Question Nobody Can Answer Cleanly

Kasravi raises the adjustment of status guidance that has firms second-guessing travel advice for people who followed every rule. Clients on H-1B and L-1 status have long had flexibility on intent. The signals now conflict, the government stepped back from its own statement inside a single day, and practitioners are being nudged toward consular processing for employees who have work to do and no appetite for getting stuck abroad.

Kasravi says he is prepping clients on TN and other categories with the same uncomfortable question: what do you want us to do here? His approvals have held so far. The advice is much harder to give than it was a year ago.

Wong's read on the human cost is the strongest moment in the episode. The lack of clarity, combined with reports of people with pending cases being stopped at airports, sends clients a message whether or not anyone intended to send it. They learn they should never feel settled.

Reductions in Force Are Breaking PERM Cases Mid-Process

Asked what is happening in the tech sector right now, Wong answers with layoffs.

Reductions in force are landing directly on the PERM program. A role gets eliminated or restructured, and the labor certification built around it stops holding. The workers caught in the middle frequently have the least runway, including people approaching their H-1B maximum with no straight path forward.

What follows is triage. Wong checks whether the employee can proceed with the PERM process at all, then whether an EB-2 NIW or an EB-1 filing is realistic on the record they have. Kasravi compares it to practicing medicine and looking down the shelf for something that might work. Sometimes the shelf is empty. Wong is direct about how that conversation goes with someone who has been in the country for years, has family here, and has invested everything in a process that a corporate restructuring just ended.

PERM TAKEAWAY: Workforce planning decisions are sponsorship decisions. Bring counsel in before the RIF list is final, because the PERM consequences are often fixable at the planning stage and rarely fixable afterward.

The Truth About EB-1A, from Someone Adjudications Actually Reach

Inquiries are up across O-1, EB-1, EB-2 and NIW as people hunt for alternatives to a crowded H-1B pathway. Scrutiny rose along with the volume. Wong reports heavier RFE activity, more notices of intent to deny, and denial rates well above what practitioners were seeing before.

Kasravi names the marketing problem directly. LinkedIn is full of EB-1A content, much of it from people who are not lawyers, presenting extraordinary ability as a checklist you can complete with the right packaging. The category is adjudicated on a totality of the circumstances standard, which does not reduce to a checklist.

Wong explains why the myth survives anyway. Adjudications are inconsistent. A weak case clears at one service center while a stronger one gets denied somewhere else. The person with the surprise approval tells friends what they did, the anecdote turns into advice, and the advice turns into a product. Her assessment of those approvals is that the applicant got lucky. Saying so out loud means telling someone they are not

extraordinary, which is a hard thing to say to a person who wants to believe otherwise.

PERM TAKEAWAY: When PERM stalls, EB-1A and NIW are the first alternatives a client will have heard about, usually from a LinkedIn post. Set expectations on evidence and current denial rates at the first conversation.

Quote Highlight

On what the current climate does to people who are lawfully in status and waiting on a pending case:

It creates this uncertainty of whether they feel safe anymore in their status. JUDY HEN WONG, ESQ. | EPISODE 493

Wong follows it with an observation that reframes the conversation. The uncertainty teaches people that they should never feel safe, and carrying that is hard on a human level. For anyone drafting client communications right now, the line is a useful check on tone. For many of the people reading those updates, the question underneath a policy change is whether their life here holds.

USCIS Went Quiet. CBP Did Not.

CBP remains one of the few agencies still communicating with AILA chapter liaisons, while USCIS engagement has fallen off this time around. Kasravi notes that the pattern inverted from the previous administration, when USCIS stayed at the table and CBP was the reluctant partner.

Both of them land on why it matters. Liaison meetings surface recurring problems early and let chapters flag friction that the agencies themselves benefit from fixing. When that channel closes, everyone operates with less information, the agency included.

How to Actually Use an AILA Membership

Wong's route into chapter leadership is worth copying. She joined AILA NorCal because she did not know how to use the organization and wanted to learn from practitioners who did. Her own framing is that she was nowhere near the full value of her membership.

A member pointed her toward the advisory council. She started as media coordinator, served a couple of years, then ran for the board and moved through treasurer, secretary and vice chair before becoming chair. Former chair Tammy later invited her onto the California Chapters Conference planning committee, where Wong had already spoken on the PERM panel the year before.

She also clarifies the structure, which differs by chapter. NorCal runs an executive board of officers plus a past chair, with an advisory council of roughly forty-five to fifty people underneath it. That group holds the agency liaison roles covering USCIS, CBP and EOIR, along with coordinator roles for new member outreach, media and events. Southern California uses liaison as the umbrella term where NorCal says advisory member.

California Chapters Conference: November 5 to 7, San Francisco

The episode closes on the conference Wong is helping plan. The committee submitted its program to national in late summer, and the schedule runs Thursday through Saturday in San Francisco. A welcome event is planned for Thursday evening with a keynote speaker the committee is keeping under wraps, and sessions begin on the first day. Programming splits into two main tracks, one for business immigration and one for removal and family practice.

Kasravi makes the case for attending even if you practice nowhere near California. The state works as a microcosm of the national caseload, running from H-2A agricultural work through asylum, so the issues on the California agenda tend to reach everyone else eventually.

Why This Episode Is a Must-Listen

Episode 493 is worth twenty minutes because Wong describes the practice as it exists on an ordinary Tuesday, with a client on the phone whose PERM just evaporated in a reorganization and no comfortable answer available.

Two things make it useful for anyone advising employers or sponsored workers:

It connects layoffs to immigration consequences in a way most workforce planning conversations still miss, which makes it directly relevant to HR, mobility and in-house teams making headcount decisions this quarter.

It supplies an evidence-based counterweight to the EB-1A content flooding professional feeds, from a practitioner watching real adjudications rather than selling a course.

For recruiters, HR leaders and in-house counsel, immigration strategy has become inseparable from workforce strategy. Decisions about headcount and role definitions carry sponsorship consequences that surface months later, usually at the worst possible moment. This episode will change how you sequence those conversations.

Listen to Episode 493 of the Immigration Lawyers Toolbox podcast with host John Kasravi and guest Judy Hinh Wong, Esq., then subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so the next episode lands automatically. Every week brings practitioner conversations, agency intelligence and real-world strategy from attorneys handling these cases daily.

Each episode promises to enrich your understanding and keep you informed about the ever-evolving landscape of immigration policies.

Subscribe, and share this with the colleague who needs it. Questions welcome at the California Chapters Conference in San Francisco, November 5 to 7.