United States | OFLC makes temporary procedural changes to mitigate impact of government shutdown on certain filings by employers

On Nov. 5, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) announced temporary measures to address disruptions caused by the government shutdown, which halted application processing activities from Oct. 1 through Nov. 2, 2025.

Key Points:

• During this period, OFLC suspended public access to the Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) system and the SeasonalJobs.dol.gov registry, preventing employers from filing prevailing wage determinations, labor certifications or responding to OFLC correspondence.
• Following is a summary of the temporary procedural changes OFLC is implementing “to its standard procedures related to applications and documents that were impacted by the cessation of application processing activities from Oct. 1, 2025, through Nov. 2, 2025”:
  • Submissions postmarked Oct. 1 – Nov. 2
    • “OFLC will manually enter the applications and other correspondence received from Oct. 1, 2025, through Nov. 2, 2025, into the FLAG system. Once the information and related correspondence associated with an application is entered into the FLAG system, a case number will be assigned in connection with an application, and employers will receive notifications to inform them that their applications have been received for processing.”
  • Certain responses with an original deadline during the government shutdown when OFLC was unable to process applications
    • Applicable responses include but are not limited to: Request for Information, Notices of Acceptance, Notices of Deficiencies, Audit Notices and Requests for Reconsideration or Review.
    • “Responses or other requests for information associated with correspondence issued by OFLC related to applications that were pending on Oct. 1, 2025, which contained a due date for response by the employer during the period of Oct. 1, 2025, through Nov. 2, 2025, will have their due dates automatically extended by 33 calendar days…Employers do not need to submit a request to extend any submission deadline that fell during the period of Oct. 1, 2025, through Nov. 2, 2025.”
  • PERM recruitment and prevailing wage determination
    • “If an employer’s recruitment efforts or prevailing wage determination expired between Oct. 1 and Nov. 2, 2025, the employer impacted by these circumstances may submit applications electronically using the expired recruitment efforts or prevailing wage determination during the same 33 calendar day period during which an automatic deadline extension has been provided.”
    •  FLAG may display warning messages for expired recruitment or wage determinations, but submissions will be accepted.
    •  Denials based on expired documentation may be challenged through a request for reconsideration.
  • Emergency filing procedures for certain H-2A, H-2B and CW-1 applications
    • Per respective regulations, H-2A and H-2B employers can “request a waiver of the regulatory time period for filing an application.”
    • CW-1 regulations permit employers “to request permission to submit an application without first having obtained a prevailing wage determination.”
    • Per regulations, employers must demonstrate good and substantial cause for the requests to be accepted.

Additional Information: These extensions apply only to OFLC-imposed deadlines and do not affect deadlines set by the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA).

More details on the temporary changes can be found here.

BAL clients are encouraged to consult with their BAL attorney for case-specific guidance.

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

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