The Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) recently announced it will permanently delete records for which a final determination was made more than five years ago from the decommissioned legacy Permanent Online System.

Key Points:

  • The system was officially decommissioned on Dec. 1, 2024.
  • Once the system was decommissioned, the records housed in it were no longer directly available to the public.
  • Case records for which a final determination was issued more than five years ago will be permanently deleted. These deletions will occur on a rolling basis as part of routine records management procedures.
  • OFLC will begin deleting records from the system to comply with its records disposition schedule, approved by the National Archives and Records Administration, effective July 1, 2025.

Additional Information: The FLAG System was implemented to replace the legacy Permanent Online System, improve customer service and modernize the administration of foreign labor certification programs. Employers and their representatives who wish to obtain any records from the legacy Permanent Online System must submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request no later than June 5, 2025. After this date, affected records will no longer be retrievable.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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