Immigration and the Department of Labor

The October 3, 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act require aliens seeking permanent admission to the United States for employment to obtain prior certification from the Department of Labor that sufficient United States workers are not available for the work the alien is to perform and that admitting the alien will not adversely affect United States workers. The scope of the new certification responsibility, which is considerably broadened under the new statute, pertains to third-preference, sixth-preference, and nonpreference immigrants from quota countries as well as immigrants from the Western Hemisphere. In most cases other than immigrant workers qualified in the professions, sciences, and the arts, a job offer from a United States employer is required to be filed with a local office of a state employment service. Certifications are issued by the eleven Bureau of Employment Security regional offices and by the United States Employment Service national office in Washington, D.C. In the seven months since the new legislation became effective (December 1, 1965), the Department of Labor issued over 23,000 immigrant worker certifications to the Departments of Justice and State. About 60 per cent of these involve professional, technical, managerial, and skilled occupations.