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A green card is _not_ an employment based immigrant visa or even a visa at all - the H-1B is. A green card holder has permanent residency and can apply for larg
by giobox 5y ago
A green card is _not_ an employment based immigrant visa or even a visa at all - the H-1B is. A green card holder has permanent residency and can apply for largely any job a US citizen can. Further they are not required to leave the country on becoming unemployed.
The immigrant visa is usually a stepping stone to permanent residency via a green card though, and this lawsuit is absolutely related to that process - when applying for permanent residency (green card) on an H-1B, the employer must supposedly prove they couldn’t hire an American to do same job. This is usually called the “PERM process”.
There has always been a gray area as to what that standard means, I’ve seen different companies interpret it very differently. When we talk about employment based immigrant visas and Facebook, it is overwhelmingly the H-1B (the data on visas issued is public).
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoAn H-1B is an employment-based non-immigrant visa; which is to say that it doesn't lead to a right to remain permanently in the U.S. A green card (I-551) is indeed, not a visa, and I was speaking informally when I described it as such. It is a document that proves the holder is a permanent legal resident, which is an immigration status. The right to permanent legal residence is established through an immigrant visa, such as the EB visas for employment-based immigration. If you are already in the U.S. on an H-1B visa, your employer will file an I-140 petition for (e.g.) an EB-1 visa. Once a visa is available (this is the long wait for Indian/Chinese applicants in many categories), you can then file a I-485 application for adjustment of status on the basis of the approved I-140 petition. Assuming the I-485 application is approved, then you will receive the I-551 "green card" as proof. In short: yes, the story is exactly about employment-based immigrant visas.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- giobox 5y agoIt’s almost entirely about PERM interviews conducted by Facebook for their H-1B holders looking to adjust status, yes. My main issue is with your earlier statement that this has nothing to do with the H-1B, when it almost exclusively concerns H-1B visa holders at Facebook in practice.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoIt would equivalently apply to petitions for immigrant visas where applicants would be outside the U.S. and apply via consular processing. Or for employees on intracompany transferee L-1 visas. The PERM process is specifically a prerequisite to an I-140 petition for immigrant visa. Anything assertion that Facebook was "defrauding the H-1B program" is completely spurious.
- giobox 5y agoWhile you are of course entitled to your view, I would respectfully disagree. In practice the _vast_ majority of I-140s filed by Facebook are for their H-1B holders. To pretend their PERM recruitment process and their use of the H-1B is somehow totally unlinked is disingenuous at best.