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Employment-Based Green Cards – Application Process

After you have received an ideal job offer from a U.S. company (if you require a job offer under your potential classification of lawful long-term house), getting a U.S. green card is a multistage process. Here, we’ll offer an overview.

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

Exceptional Case: job Requesting 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 short, obtaining an employment based green card involves these steps:

– Your potential employer demands 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 judgment as to just how much money is normally paid to individuals in jobs like the one you’ve been used. The PWD will typically end within a year or less, so it will be essential to hire for and file the PERM labor accreditation quickly after the PWD is released.
– Your employer markets and recruits for the job you have actually been offered and job ultimately identifies (in good faith) that there are no competent U.S. employees offered and prepared to take the job.
– Your company submits a PERM labor accreditation application online, utilizing the electronic USDOL Form 9089.
– You wait the numerous 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 authorizes the petition, you wait till a visa is available. It may be right away offered, if the variety of people who applied in your category because exact same year is less than the variety of visas available; or if too many individuals applied, then you might have to wait until your Priority Date ends up being existing. (Get details on monitoring your Priority Date.).
– You submit a green card application and pay the costs, either utilizing USCIS Form I-485 to “change status,” which ultimately includes an interview at a local migration 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 upon where you are living now, and if you remain in the U.S., whether you are legally present or otherwise eligible to adjust status. (For detailed info on these treatments, 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 end up being an irreversible citizen. Your green card will arrive by mail numerous 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), you can send your I-485 application together with your employer’s I-140 petition. If you’re following the consular processing option, you’ll to await I-140 approval from USCIS before preparing your files for the visa interview abroad.

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

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

You or your employer will simply submit the USCIS Form I-140 immigrant petition straight with the USCIS Service Center and, once it’s approved, either submit a Type I-485 green card application with USCIS (if you are legally present within the United States and qualified to adjust 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 wed or have kids listed below the age of 21 and you qualify for a green card through employment, job your partner and children can get green cards as accompanying loved ones. They will need to offer evidence of their household relationship to you, such as marriage or birth certificates.