AZ DES Green Card Inquiry

When companies decide to hire an alien with a work-based green card (EB category), the labor certification regulations require that they look for qualified U.S. workers. This bureaucratic process is called a "labor market test". The process is a charade that usually begins and ends with the placement of job-ads posted in local newspapers. Qualified U.S. workers that send resumes in response to these ads are routinely rejected.

In this case, Rob Sanchez applied as a test engineer for Intel when he saw a job advertisement in the Arizona Republic newspaper. The interview didn't happen because Intel never intended on hiring a U.S. citizen. In response the Arizona Department of Economic Security (on behalf of the U.S. Dept. of Labor) sent Sanchez the form below to inquire if he was qualified for the job. After dutifully filling out the forms to explain why he was qualified, and mailing them back to the AZ DES, Intel declined to interview him for the job. The AZ DES had no authority to require employers to interview American citizens so Intel wasn't questioned why they shunned U.S. workers like Rob Sanchez. Intel discriminated against Sanchez because of his national origin - and they got away with it!

The AZDES quit sending out these forms after 1994 because they concluded that the only thing that was accomplished was that large numbers of Arizona residents got very angry when they found out that employers shunned them for foreign workers. The AZDES figured it was much less of a hassle to keep Arizonans happy and dumb than to help them find good jobs.

NOTE: Labor market tests are not required for H-1B or L-1 nonimmigrant visas. That's because employers are not required to look for qualified U.S. workers if they decide to import workers by using H-1B/L-1 visas.