Employment-Based Green Cards - Application Process
After you have actually gotten an ideal job deal from a U.S. company (if you require a job offer under your potential classification of lawful permanent home), getting a U.S. green card is a multistage procedure. Here, we'll offer an overview.
Basic Steps to Receiving U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Based Upon Employment
Exceptional Case: Getting 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 Upon Employment
In brief, making an application for a work based green card involves these steps:
- 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 official ruling as to how much money is normally paid to individuals in tasks like the one you've been used. The PWD will typically expire within a year or less, so it will be important to recruit for and file the PERM labor accreditation quickly after the PWD is provided.
- Your employer promotes and hires for the job you have actually been provided and ultimately determines (in good faith) that there are no competent U.S. workers readily available and ready to take the job.
- Your employer files a PERM labor certification application online, the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
- You wait the numerous months that the DOL will require to adjudicate the PERM labor accreditation application, and mail the certified 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 employer prepares and files a petition using Form I-140, provided 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 offered, job if the number of people who used in your category because same year is less than the variety of visas readily available; or job if too lots of individuals applied, then you might have to wait till your Priority Date ends up being current. (Get info on monitoring your Priority Date.).
- You submit a permit application and pay the costs, either utilizing USCIS Form I-485 to "change status," which eventually consists of an interview at a local immigration workplace near your home, or by completing a number of steps to ultimately 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 otherwise qualified to change status. (For detailed info on these treatments, see Getting a Permit: Consular Processing vs. Adjustment of Status.).
- If your interview is at a consulate, job after approval you get in the U.S. with your immigrant visa, at which time you become a long-term homeowner. Your green card will get here by mail numerous weeks later on.
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 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 alternative, you'll require to await I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.
Exceptional Case: Getting a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification
If you certify for an immigrant visa classification that does not need labor job certification, then you will not need to follow all of the steps detailed above.
You or your employer will simply file the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition straight with the USCIS Service Center and, once it's authorized, either submit a Type I-485 green card application with USCIS (if you are lawfully present within the United States and eligible to change status) or await 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 married or have kids below the age of 21 and you get approved for a green card through employment, your partner and children can get permits as accompanying family members. They will need to offer evidence of their family relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.