Despite former US president Donald Trump having left office, it seems anti-immigrant sentiment has not quite left American policy yet. L1B visa denial rates remain high, according to a Forbes report.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is reportedly denying a significant number of L1B visas, much to the frustration of employers looking to transfer overseas staff with specialist knowledge to the US.
Over the past seven years, across three presidential administrations, denial rates for L1B visas have averaged a "very high" 28.2 percent.
Under the Obama administration, in the 2015 fiscal year, the L1B petition refusal rate at USCIS was 24.9 percent, dropping slightly to 24.2 percent in 2016.
During the Trump era, the rejection rate rose to 26.9 percent in 2017, rising to 28 percent in 2018 and surging to 34.4 percent in 2019 before falling slightly to 33 percent two years ago.
On why denial rates remain high, Forbes magazine said, "While the [USCIS'] standard is not insurmountable, USCIS applies it in a way that favors documentary evidence while discounting the company's own assessments of the worker's importance and knowledge."
