Hi my name is Jacob Sapochnick and I'm an immigration attorney in San Diego California.
In this video, I want to talk about how to get a green card through an employer-sponsored
petition.
Now, most people who are here on a work visa are aspiring to get their employers to petition
for the green card and in this video I'm going to give a quick overview with some very important
tips as to how this process works and what is the most efficient way to go through this
process.
The green card process of employment requires the employer to prove to the government that
the hiring of the foreign national is not going to affect the labor of current available
US workers.
That is why they have to go through a process called a labor certification or also known
as perm.
This is the new way to do this process.
The labor certification requires the employer to go through a process of testing the market,
the labor market.
The way they do it they do it through a process of advertising.
And so I have a chart here behind me the chose case the whole process.
And we're starting basically with the perm process the labor certification.
And that process basically is the first step or person on an H-Visa or any other visa that
is currently working for the employer will require the employer ask the employer to start
the process.
Now this is a this is a future position so currently, you're working for the employee
or H-Visa or any other visa and the perm the major process in future positions is something
that you will be the employer requires to show that once you get approved then they
will comply with all those conditions.
The wage or any other thing.
So as we go through the perm process, the first step is the employer has to file the
prevailing wage.
They file the prevailing wage so we can get the wage that the Labor Department feels or
based on their requirement the employer must pay that wage is different then h-1B wage
if you have an h-1B Visa at this point.
Once they ate the wage certification comes back that's when the whole process starts.
That's when we have to start advertising the position, putting together the ads with the
minimum requirements that the position that the employer requires that's when the recruitment
steps will begin.
We do not recommend to start recruitment or use any older equipment steps before the wage
certifications came back.
Otherwise, the Labor Department may create issues or an audit in the future as to why
everything started before the wage certification came through.
So once you have the wage certified and you have your ads created and all the different
recruitment steps typically for professional position, we need to send the ads we need
a website advertising, we need for example something to be put on an employer's website
or the recruiters website there are many steps in the process once all that has completed
typically it takes about two months to go through the advertising process the employee
has to wait 30 days and then they filed the perm labor certification.
And these days those application can go anywhere from 2 months or up to 6 months depending
if there's an audit or not.
Once the labor certification has been approved then the employer can file the application
with the US Immigration Service so this part of the process we are with the Labor Department,
D.O.L.
This is the DOL and here we are with USCIS.
So the Labor Department once they have certified the petition now we can take that petition
and use that with our Immigration Department.
Now if you notice there I have two lines in my chart one called EB-2 and one is EB-3.
EB-3 and EB-2 they are sections of law depending on the person's qualifications.
Typically EB3 applicants are those that hold at least a bachelor degree and they have up
to five years of experience or the position requires a position with the bachelors with
less than five years.
The EB2 is what we call an advanced degree persons that hold a master's or higher degree
or if they don't have a master's they have a bachelor degree with five or seven years
of experience.
If you qualify under the EB-2 category typically your process will go faster.
If you are not, a person from India, China, the Philippines, those categories are backlogged
and slow.
We use, we look at the Visa Bulletin to see where a visa is available.
If you're not from one of those countries then if you go with the EB-2 category you
incur processors will go much faster you don't have to wait for a visa to be able to file
for an adjustment of status that's why I show that the i-140, the immigrant petition and
the 45 the adjuastment of status petition can be filed concurrently and this way when
the process is done you're going to be able to get the green card in less than two years.
If you are a person that qualifies under the EB-3 category in the sense that either your
job requires that or you don't qualify education wise whether you're from India or China or
the Philippines or any other country, right now there's a backlog, which means that right
now the visa is not available, which means you have to go into a line, a waiting line
to wait for your visa category to be available.
Which means that you can only file the i-140 the immigrant petition to qualify the position
and then when your visa category is current only then you can file for your 45 adjustments
of status.
Therefore, it's important early enough in the process right here to be able to decide
whether you are going to be filing as an EB-2 to or as an EB-3 because if you don't make
that determination early enough in the process who have severe consequences at the end.
Once again it's very important to plan the process carefully from the start to determine
whether that you as an applicant will be in EB-2 or EB-3 category working with the employer
and their attorney to make that process that makes that planning early on the process.
All in all the labor certification and the i140-45 is the current way to be able to get
a green card permanent residency through an employer.
This is pretty much the way to do it these days, so our recommendation is to really carefully
plan the process from the start to know what is the minimum what are the minimum requirements
of the employer.
The employer needs to really understand planning that with their attorney.
We wish you all the best in the labor certification and green card process if you have any questions
about this video or the labor certification process feel free to visit our website or
give us a call.
Thank you for watching!