Frequently Asked Questions
Employment-based immigration allows foreign nationals who have skills and talents needed in the United States to obtain lawful permanent residence ("green card").
The employment based immigrant classifications are divided into five categories:
- First Preference - Priority Workers – includes individuals with 'extraordinary ability', 'outstanding professors and researchers' and 'certain multinational executives and managers of multinational companies.'
- Second Preference - Professionals holding advanced degrees or those persons with exceptional ability in arts, sciences or business are classified as aliens of extraordinary abilities.
- Third Preference - Professionals, skilled and unskilled workers. Foreign nationals who are professionals holding Bachelor's Degrees, skilled workers performing labor requiring at least two years training or experience and unskilled workers. Only 10,000 visas per year are available for the unskilled workers. A labor certification is required for all third preference immigrants.
- Fourth Preference - Special Immigrants. Foreign nationals who are ministers, religious workers and certain other special immigrants.
- Fifth Preference - Employment Creation. Foreign nationals who invest $1,000,000.00 ($500,000.00 in some locations) in a job-creating enterprise in the United States. No labor certification is required.
Your employer must do this process for your through the Department of Labor by advertising the position to US workers first.
If no us workers apply for your job in a specific period of time employer can sponsor your green card.
PERM is a test of the US labor force to see if there is a shortage of qualified workers.
It is a certification from the US Department of Labor that a job offer from a us employer can support a green card.
The Labor Certification process takes anywhere from 1-2 years depending on whether the case is audited or selected for special recruitment It does not give you lawful status during this time.
There is no status check per se, but timeframes are posted on alien labor certification website.
After approval the employer must file an immigrant petition with USCIS to prove ability to pay and foreign national qualifications.
Employment based categories EB3 and EB2, which includes unskilled, skilled and professional positions including advanced degrees.