Peter Duniho wrote on 1/29/2005 11:24:

Perhaps. However, finding a "good lawyer" is less than trivial, just as
finding a competent person in practically any profession is. Two (maybe
three, I forget) different lawyers had been hired (at different times) to
assist with the permanent resident application, but none offered that
advice.

I agree that there are way too many bad immigration lawyers out there. I
have experienced one or two of them myself...
That's when I decided to learn enough about this stuff to be able to
know if a lawyer is trying to BS me.

Regardless, in this case, it's my opinion that the prevailing wage should
have been evaluated in a different context. A non-profit organization isn't
going to pay the same pay scale as might be found at a high-revenue
commercial operation (like Microsoft, Apple, or Sun...three big employers
that hire technical editors), or a for-profit periodical publication (say PC
World or Windows Magazine, or something like that).

And that isn't the case. The prevailing wage is determined by
metropolitan area. The prevailing wage for a specific job in, say, some
small town in the Midwest is less than the prevailing wage for that same
job in Silly Valley, or Seattle, or NYC. The cost of living is of course
lower in small towns as well.

Why should technical editing pay at a non-profit be compared to pay at
companies that are in a decidedly different business? Under this
interpretation of the rules, no non-profit organization can ever hire a
permanent resident applicant.

By the same logic, the non-profit organization wouldn't be able to hire
Americans, either, since they all would go to the companies who pay the
big bucks...

They simply cannot afford to compete with
other employers that are engaged in an entirely different business.

Non-profit does not necessarily mean that they can't afford to pay
competitive salaries...
Non-profit or not, the rules apply to everybody. If a company, for
profit or non-profit, can't afford or is unwilling to pay the going rate
for a specific position in a specific area, they can't sponsor a
Greencard for that position.

increase. The company was highly motivated to keep her as an employee, and
they did everything they could within their budget to assist in her
permanent resident application.

Well, there is the catch right the "within their budget". If they
were really, really interested in keeping her, they would have paid her
the going rate in the area.
In other words, the company was paying lip service to her, but their
actions or rather lack of action spoke louder than their words.
Once she would have gotten the GC, she could have gone to the
higher-paying companies. She couldn't do that as long as she was on a
work visa, hence the company took advantage of her limited ability to
change jobs. And that's what the rules try to prevent.
And, btw, the law doesn't allow to use the experience gained on the job
as an advantage over other applicants who are otherwise qualified for
the job.

In any case, this is getting quite off-topic here, so I set the followup
to alt.visa.us.

-Joe