On May 16, 2020 a landmark settlement was reached in the case, IT Serve Alliance, Inc. v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (IT Serve Alliance) after a decision was issued on March 10, 2020 by the District Court for the District of Columbia. The USCIS has agreed to rescind the February 2018 USCIS memo, “Contracts and Itineraries Requirements for H-1B Petitions Involving Third-Party Worksites” (PM-602-0157) in its entirety within 90 days of the settlement. The USCIS will also “abstain from the application of the 1991 itinerary requirement, 8 Sec 214.2 (h)(2)(i)(B).”[1]

In 2019, a group of information technology consulting companies filed suit against the agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the February 2018 USCIS memo, “Contracts and Itineraries Requirements for H-1B Petitions Involving Third-Party Worksites” (PM-602-0157). The suit challenged the USCIS’s policy of denying H-1B petitions where employers were unable to provide every contract for work at a client site, as well as the issuance of short-term approvals for only days or weeks at a time on the same basis.

This is a huge victory for companies that file H-1B petitions for placements at third party worksites.

[1] See https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ITSERVE-SETTLEMENT-AGREEMENT-fully-executed_Redacted52020.pdf