Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process

After you have gotten an appropriate task deal from a U.S. employer (if you require a task deal under your potential category of lawful long-term house), getting a U.S. green card is a multistage process. Here, we’ll provide an introduction.

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

Exceptional Case: Applying 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 permit includes these actions:

– Your prospective company requests what’s called a prevailing wage determination (PWD) from the U.S. Department of Labor, utilizing the online FLAG system. The PWD is the Department of Labor’s official judgment as to just how much cash is usually paid to individuals in jobs like the one you’ve been provided. The PWD will normally expire within a year or less, so it will be essential to hire for and submit the PERM labor accreditation soon after the PWD is provided.
– Your company advertises and recruits for the task you’ve been offered and eventually determines (in good faith) that there are no qualified U.S. workers readily available and happy to take the job.
– Your company submits a PERM labor certification application online, utilizing the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
– You wait the several months that the DOL will take to adjudicate the PERM labor certification application, and mail the licensed PERM application to your employer (this time frame can extend approximately a year if the DOL selects your PERM application for audit).
– Within 180 days of the PERM labor certification approval, your employer 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 until a visa is available. It may be immediately readily available, if the variety of people who applied in your category in that very same year is less than the number of visas available; or if a lot of individuals applied, then you might have to wait until your Priority Date becomes existing. (Get info on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You submit a green card application and pay the costs, either using USCIS Form I-485 to “adjust status,” which ultimately includes an interview at a local migration workplace near your home, or by completing numerous steps to ultimately have an interview at a U.S. consulate outside of the U.S. (through what is called “consular processing”). Which treatment you use depends upon where you are living now, and if you remain in the U.S., whether you are legally present or otherwise qualified to change status. (For detailed info on these procedures, see Getting a Green Card: Consular Processing vs. Adjustment of Status.).
– If your interview is at a consulate, employment after approval you get in the U.S. with your immigrant visa, at which time you become an irreversible resident. Your green card will show up by mail a number of weeks later.

Note that in cases when there is no stockpile in your green card category (and everybody’s priority date is current according to the Department of State’s latest Visa Bulletin), employment you can submit your I-485 application in addition to your employer’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: Making An Application For a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification

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

You or your company will merely submit the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition straight with the USCIS Service Center and, once it’s approved, employment either file a Kind I-485 green card application with USCIS (if you are legally present within the United States and qualified to change status) or wait for 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 listed below the age of 21 and you receive a permit through employment, your partner and children can get green cards as accompanying relatives. They will need to provide proof of their family relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.