Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process

After you have gotten an ideal task offer from a U.S. company (if you need a job offer under your prospective classification of lawful irreversible residence), 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 Upon Employment

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

Lawful Permanent Residence for employment Spouse and Children of Employee

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

In short, obtaining an employment based permit includes these actions:

– Your prospective employer requests what’s called a fundamental wage determination (PWD) from the U.S. Department of Labor, utilizing the online FLAG system. The PWD is the Department of Labor’s formal ruling regarding how much money is generally paid to individuals in jobs like the one you have actually been used. The PWD will typically expire within a year or less, so it will be essential to hire for and file the PERM labor certification not long after the PWD is released.
– Your company advertises and hires for employment the task you’ve been provided and ultimately determines (in good faith) that there are no qualified U.S. workers available and ready to take the job.
– Your employer files a PERM labor accreditation application online, using 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 up to a year if the DOL selects your PERM application for audit).
– Within 180 days of the PERM labor accreditation approval, your company prepares and submits a petition utilizing Form I-140, provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
– After USCIS approves the petition, you wait up until a visa is readily available. It might be immediately readily available, if the number of people who used 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 may have to wait up until your Priority Date ends up being existing. (Get details on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You file a permit application and pay the costs, either using USCIS Form I-485 to “change status,” which eventually consists of an interview at a regional immigration workplace near your home, or by finishing numerous steps to eventually have an interview at a U.S. consulate beyond the U.S. (through what is called “consular processing”). Which procedure you use depends on where you are living now, and if you are in the U.S., whether you are lawfully present or employment otherwise qualified to adjust status. (For detailed information on these procedures, employment 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 a permanent homeowner. Your green card will arrive by mail several 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 most current Visa Bulletin), you can send your I-485 application together with your company’s I-140 petition. If you’re following the consular processing alternative, you’ll require to await I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.

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

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

You or your employer will merely submit the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition directly with the USCIS Service Center and, once it’s authorized, either file a Type I-485 green card with USCIS (if you are legally present within the United States and eligible to change status) or wait for directions 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 qualify for a permit through work, your partner and kids can get green cards as accompanying relatives. They will need to supply evidence of their household relationship to you, such as marital relationship or birth certificates.