Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process

After you have gotten a suitable task offer from a U.S. company (if you require a task offer under your prospective category of legal irreversible house), getting a U.S. green card is a multistage process. Here, we’ll supply an introduction.

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

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

Lawful Permanent Residence for Spouse and employment 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 involves these actions:

– Your potential 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 just how much money is usually paid to people in jobs like the one you have actually been offered. The PWD will generally end within a year or less, so it will be very important to hire for and file the PERM labor certification quickly after the PWD is provided.
– Your employer promotes and recruits for the job you’ve been used and ultimately determines (in great faith) that there are no competent U.S. employees offered and ready to take the task.
– Your company submits a PERM labor certification application online, using the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
– You wait the several months that the DOL will require to adjudicate the PERM labor certification application, and mail the licensed PERM application to your company (this time frame can extend as much as a year if the DOL selects your PERM application for audit).
– Within 180 days of the PERM labor certification approval, your company prepares and submits a petition using Form I-140, released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
– After USCIS approves the petition, you wait until a visa is readily available. It might be immediately offered, if the variety of people who applied in your classification in that exact same year is less than the number of visas offered; or if a lot of people used, then you might need to wait till your Priority Date becomes present. (Get info on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You file a green card application and pay the costs, either using USCIS Form I-485 to “change status,” which ultimately consists of an interview at a regional immigration office near your home, or by completing several steps to eventually 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 lawfully present or employment otherwise eligible to adjust status. (For detailed details 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 local. Your permit will show up by mail a number of weeks later.

Note that in cases when there is no backlog in your permit classification (and everyone’s concern date is existing according to the Department of State’s latest Visa Bulletin), you can send your I-485 application along with your employer’s I-140 petition. If you’re following the consular processing choice, you’ll require to wait on I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.

Exceptional Case: Obtaining a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification

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

You or your employer will merely submit the USCIS Form I-140 directly with the USCIS Service Center and, once it’s authorized, either submit a Type I-485 permit application with USCIS (if you are legally present within the United States and eligible to change status) or wait for 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 married or have children below the age of 21 and you qualify for employment a green card through employment, your partner and children can get permits as accompanying loved ones. They will require to offer proof of their family relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.