Employment-Based Green Cards - Application Process
After you have gotten an ideal job deal from a U.S. employer (if you need a job deal under your potential classification of legal irreversible home), getting a U.S. permit is a multistage process. Here, we'll provide an overview.
Basic Steps to Receiving U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Based Upon Employment
Exceptional Case: Looking 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, looking for a work based permit includes these steps:
- Your potential company requests what's called a prevailing wage decision (PWD) from the U.S. Department of Labor, utilizing the online FLAG system. The PWD is the Department of Labor's formal ruling as to how much cash is typically paid to individuals in jobs like the one you have actually been provided. The PWD will normally expire within a year or less, so it will be to hire for and file the PERM labor certification right after the PWD is released.
- Your company advertises and hires for the job you have actually been used and ultimately identifies (in great faith) that there are no certified U.S. workers readily available and willing to take the task.
- Your employer submits a PERM labor certification application online, utilizing the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
- You wait the a number of months that the DOL will take to adjudicate the PERM labor certification application, and mail the licensed PERM application to your company (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 employer prepares and submits a petition using Form I-140, provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
- After USCIS authorizes the petition, you wait up until a visa is readily available. It might be immediately readily available, if the variety of individuals who used in your classification in that very same year is less than the number of visas offered; or if a lot of individuals applied, then you may need to wait until your Priority Date becomes existing. (Get details on monitoring your Priority Date.).
- You file a green card application and pay the fees, either utilizing USCIS Form I-485 to "adjust status," which ultimately includes an interview at a regional immigration office near your home, or by finishing several actions 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 remain in the U.S., whether you are lawfully present or otherwise eligible to change status. (For detailed info on these treatments, see Getting a Green Card: Consular Processing vs. Adjustment of Status.).
- If your interview is at a consulate, after approval you enter the U.S. with your immigrant visa, at which time you end up being an irreversible resident. Your green card will show up by mail numerous weeks later on.
Note that in cases when there is no stockpile in your green card category (and everyone's top priority date is present according to the Department of State's most current Visa Bulletin), you can submit your I-485 application in addition to your company's I-140 petition. If you're following the consular processing option, you'll require to wait for I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your documents for the visa interview abroad.
Exceptional Case: Applying for a U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Without Labor Certification
If you receive an immigrant visa category that does not require labor employment accreditation, then you will not require to follow all of the steps detailed above.
You or your company will just submit the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition directly with the USCIS Service Center and, once it's authorized, either file a Kind I-485 permit application with USCIS (if you are legally present within the United States and eligible to adjust status) or wait for 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 employment Children of Employee
If you're wed or have children listed below the age of 21 and you certify for a permit through employment, your spouse and children can get green cards as accompanying family members. They will need to offer evidence of their household relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.