Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process

After you have gotten an ideal job offer from a U.S. company (if you need a job deal under your potential classification of legal long-term home), getting a U.S. permit is a multistage procedure. Here, we’ll provide a summary.

Basic Steps to Receiving U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Based Upon Employment

Exceptional Case: Making An Application 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 short, making an application for a work based permit involves these steps:

– Your potential employer demands what’s called a prevailing wage decision (PWD) from the U.S. Department of Labor, employment utilizing the online FLAG system. The PWD is the Department of Labor’s formal judgment as to just how much money is normally paid to individuals in jobs like the one you’ve been provided. The PWD will usually expire within a year or less, so it will be very important to hire for and employment submit the PERM labor certification not long after the PWD is issued.
– Your company promotes and recruits for the task you’ve been offered and eventually figures out (in good faith) that there are no certified U.S. workers offered and going to take the task.
– Your company files a PERM labor certification application online, using the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
– You wait the a number of months that the DOL will require to adjudicate the PERM labor certification application, and mail the licensed PERM application to your employer (this time frame can extend as much as a year if the DOL chooses your PERM application for audit).
– Within 180 days of the PERM labor accreditation approval, employment your employer prepares and files a petition using Form I-140, issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
– After USCIS approves the petition, you wait till a visa is available. It might be immediately readily available, if the number of individuals who applied in your category because same year is less than the of visas readily available; or if a lot of people applied, then you may have to wait up until your Priority Date becomes current. (Get information on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You submit a green card application and pay the costs, either using USCIS Form I-485 to “change status,” which eventually includes an interview at a regional immigration workplace near your home, or by finishing numerous actions to ultimately have an interview at a U.S. consulate outside of the U.S. (through what is called “consular processing”). Which treatment you utilize depends upon where you are living now, and if you are in the U.S., whether you are lawfully present or otherwise eligible to change status. (For detailed information on these treatments, see Getting a Permit: 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 an irreversible resident. Your permit will get here by mail numerous weeks later on.

Note that in cases when there is no stockpile in your green card category (and everybody’s concern date is current according to the Department of State’s most current Visa Bulletin), you can send your I-485 application together with your employer’s I-140 petition. If you’re following the consular processing alternative, you’ll require to wait on I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.

Exceptional Case: Applying for employment a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification

If you certify for an immigrant visa classification that does not require labor accreditation, employment then you will not require to follow all of the actions outlined above.

You or your company will simply file the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition straight with the USCIS Service Center and, once it’s approved, either file a Form I-485 green card application with USCIS (if you are lawfully present within the United States and eligible to adjust status) or employment await guidelines 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 employment have kids below the age of 21 and you qualify for a permit through work, your partner and children can get green cards as accompanying relatives. They will need to offer evidence of their family relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.