Employer Sponsored Green Card Types

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Employer sponsored Green Card in USA

United States is one of the most popular and welcoming countries for talent based high skilled workers immigration. Each year, many skilled workers around the world enter the U.S. and become part of our essential workforce, contributing their professions and specialized skills to the country. The immigration status of these skilled workers vary depending on their skills set, nature of their jobs, employers and country of origins. While some of these professional workers gain their U.S. employment via investment or self-sponsored immigration, a substantial number of them work in the U.S. with an employer sponsored green card.

How to get an Employer Sponsored Green Card?

Employment based sponsorship green card or employer sponsored green card are permanent residence status petitioned by U.S. employers for foreign workers. A foreign national must file an employment based green card petition with the help of a U.S. employer or company. In another words, a U.S. employer must “sponsor” a foreign worker a work based U.S. residency (green card) and go through all the necessary immigration steps before the worker can be employed and perform the relevant work duties legally in the U.S.

Step by Step Process of How to Get an Employer Sponsored Green Card

Gaining a permanent residence status (green card) via a sponsoring employer must include the following steps:

A job offer by a U.S. employer
There must be a permanent job offer to the foreign skilled workers by a U.S. company or employer. If you do not have an job offer, you must find a job that offers green card sponsorship and potentially allow you to become a U.S. legal resident based that the job. Also, the job offer must be permanent in nature and full-time employment. It must be contingent upon receiving approval of the Labor Certification, the Immigrant Visa Petition, and ultimately the Application for Permanent Residence.
PERM Labor Certification
After a permanent job offer is made by a U.S. employer, the next step is to file a labor certificate. A permanent labor certification issued by the Department of Labor (DOL) allows a U.S. employer to hire a foreign worker to work in the United States. The purpose of the Labor Certification process is to test the labor market to determine if there are any available U.S. workers minimally qualified for the job. This process involves first identifying and evaluating the job requirements and job duties. Since DOL will ultimately be making a decision as to whether there are any available US workers minimally qualified, you need to decide whether you have a credible case to pursue it. If there are not available U.S. workers that are minimally qualified for the job, the labor certificate will be approved.
I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker.
Upon the approval of the labor certificate, a visa petition (I-140) must be prepared. The visa petition will be signed by the employer and submitted to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) along with the approved labor certification. At this time, the employer must submit documentation establishing the company’s ability to pay the employee’s proffered wages.

Green Card for Employer Sponsored Workers

In general, there are four major types of employer sponsored permanent residencies. Each of these employer sponsored green card requires different credentials, experience, skills and job duties from the employee and offered job position. If you are interested to know which of these employer sponsored green card are a good fit for you, please check out the links below or feel free to contact Cipolla Law Group or call us at 773-687-0549 to schedule a consultation so we can evaluate your options.

EB-1(b) Outstanding Professors/Researchers Green Card (PERM)
EB-1(c) Multinational Managers Green Card
EB-2 Advanced Degree Green Card (PERM)
EB-3 Skilled and Professional Workers Green Card (PERM)

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS – EMPLOYER SPONSORED GREEN CARD

Can a company sponsor work Green Card?

Any employer sponsored permanent residency (green card) must start with a permanent full time job offer from a U.S. employer. To be eligible to sponsor a foreign worker to work in the U.S., a company must be able to show that it has the financial resource to pay for the wages of their workers. Also, it must show that the job position is real and after attempting to recruit U.S. local workers, no other U.S. workers that are minimally qualified for the job are available. In short, a U.S. company must proof that there is as shortage of qualified U.S. workers exists to fill the position offered to the sponsored employee, and that the U.S. company are paying or will pay the employee the “prevailing wage”.

Do employers pay for green card?

The proper question should be “do employers pay for all the cost of the green card application?” The answer is no. While employers must pay for the cost of PERM or labor certificate process, including the recruitment cost, they are not required to pay for the filing fees of the I-140/the actual green card application or the subsequent adjustment of status application. The sponsored employee or practically anyone can bear that costs including the filing fees and attorney fees if you are being represented by an immigration lawyer.

Can I quit my job after receiving green card?

As soon as you receive your green card or the approval of your adjustment of status (I-485), you are technically free to change job, work for whoever you want, or not work at all. There is no established rules that prohibit you from “quitting” your green card sponsoring job. However, from an immigration prospective, it is not advisable to do so immediately after your green card approval. Given the fact that your employment based green card is supported by a permanent job offer, meaning you as the sponsored employee were intended to work on a more permanent basis for the sponsored job. By changing jobs or quitting immediately or a few months after you receive your employment green card, you may have a risk of a misrepresentation charge during your naturalization application, should you decide to become a U.S. citizen in the future. As a rule of thumb, you might want to wait 6 to 12 months before leaving your job as both you and your employer (during the employer sponsor green card application) were saying it is a permanent job offer under the terms of I-140.

Can company sponsors green card without H1b?

Definitely! While many foreign workers begin their immigration journey from F1, H-1B to PERM or other employment based green card or employer sponsored green card, it is not required by law for employers to sponsor a foreign worker who are in H1B visa status.

Experienced Employer Sponsored Green Card Lawyers in Chicago

At Cipolla Law Group, our lawyers have over 30 years of collective experience and we focus 100% of our practice on Immigration. Our principal lawyer Gerald Cipolla Esq. (MS Computer Science; MBA; BS BioChemistry) not only is an experienced immigration lawyer but also has a strong knowledge on science and technology. His unique professional and STEM background combined with his MBA and business credentials allow him and our team to effectively represent our highly skilled clients in getting their employer sponsored green cards. If you want to know how to get a green card through your employer, please call 773-687-0549 or contact Cipolla Law Group online for a consultation.