Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process
After you have received an ideal job deal from a U.S. company (if you need a task deal under your prospective category of legal long-term residence), employment getting a U.S. green card is a multistage process. Here, we’ll offer a summary.
Basic Steps to Receiving U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Based on Employment
Exceptional Case: Looking For a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification
Lawful Permanent Residence for Spouse and Children of Employee
Basic Steps to Receiving U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Based on Employment
In quick, making an application for an employment based green card includes these steps:
– Your prospective company requests what’s called a prevailing wage determination (PWD) from the U.S. Department of Labor, using the online FLAG system. The PWD is the Department of Labor’s formal ruling as to how much money is generally paid to people in tasks like the one you’ve been offered. The PWD will normally expire within a year or less, so it will be crucial to recruit for and file the PERM labor accreditation right after the PWD is issued.
– Your company markets and hires for the task you’ve been offered and eventually identifies (in excellent faith) that there are no competent U.S. workers readily available and going to take the task.
– Your employer submits a PERM labor accreditation application online, utilizing the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
– You wait the a number of months that the DOL will require to adjudicate the PERM labor accreditation application, and mail the accredited PERM application to your employer (this time frame can extend up to a year if the DOL chooses your PERM application for audit).
– Within 180 days of the PERM labor accreditation approval, your company prepares and files a petition using Form I-140, released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
– After USCIS approves the petition, you wait till a visa is available. It may be right away available, if the variety of individuals who applied in your classification in that exact same year is less than the number of visas offered; or if too many people used, then you might have to wait until your Priority Date becomes current. (Get details on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You submit a green card application and pay the fees, either utilizing USCIS Form I-485 to «adjust status,» which ultimately consists of an interview at a local immigration office near your home, or by completing a number of actions to ultimately have an interview at a U.S. consulate outside of the U.S. (through what is called «consular processing»). Which procedure you use depends upon where you are living now, and if you are in the U.S., whether you are legally present or otherwise eligible to adjust status. (For detailed information on these procedures, see Getting a Green Card: Consular Processing vs. Adjustment of Status.).
– If your interview is at a consulate, after approval you go into the U.S. with your immigrant visa, at which time you become a permanent citizen. Your green card will show up by mail a number of weeks later.
Note that in cases when there is no backlog in your permit category (and everyone’s priority date is current according to the Department of State’s newest Visa Bulletin), you can submit your I-485 application together with your company’s I-140 petition. If you’re following the consular processing alternative, you’ll need to wait for I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.
Exceptional Case: Looking For a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification
If you certify for an immigrant visa category that does not need labor certification, then you will not need to follow all of the steps described above.
You or your employer will merely file the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition directly with the Center and, once it’s approved, either submit a Kind I-485 green card application with USCIS (if you are lawfully present within the United States and qualified to change status) or wait for instructions from the National Visa Center (NVC) to prepare you for a visa interview at a U.S. embassy abroad.
Lawful Permanent Residence for Spouse and Children of Employee
If you’re wed or have children below the age of 21 and you qualify for a green card through work, employment your spouse and employment children can get permits as accompanying loved ones. They will need to provide proof of their family relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.
