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And how does one get a green card in this country pray tell? One need to have an underlying immigration status in this country while you begin your decade long

by ambrood 12y ago

And how does one get a green card in this country pray tell? One need to have an underlying immigration status in this country while you begin your decade long process for a gc.

Joky 12y ago
You don't need to have an underlying immigration status in the US to start the application (according to a lawyer I asked this question). And it takes a decade only if you come from India (or other country that provided a large number of immigrant). For many countries it is a matter of months.
- gabbo 12y ago
  In all but the most special/uncommon cases it's likely to take more than months (unless you also consider 9-12 months to be a matter of months). I know many, many engineers who have gone through the US immigration process. Some had good experiences, some had bad ones, but I don't know anyone for whom the entire process took a matter of months - and their employers are the sort who would spend quite a bit of money to move things faster if they could. For employment-based green cards you generally have to get PERM labor certification (where the sponsoring employer literally advertises your job and has to show that there aren't American citizens/green card holders who can do it). That takes a while on its own (weeks, generally months). Then depending on your education/experience, you get a date which corresponds to your position in an immigrant visa queue. The more education/experience you have the higher the queue you can sit in, and it's done by birth country (not citizenship). There are separate queues for China, India, Mexico, Philippines, and "everywhere else." If you have a graduate degree, significant job experience directly related to the US position, or some skill the lawyers can pass off as highly rare/sought after, you might end up in the EB-1/EB-2 queues which are quite short (if you entered the queue today you'd already be at the front). In which case the processing time might only be a few weeks/months. Or you could end up in the EB-3 queue (bachelor's or equivalent experience a.k.a. many software engineers). Right now people who entered the queue 2 years ago are at the front if they're not from China/India/Mexico/Philippines (http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-for-december-2014.html http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy...), 4 years ago for China, and 11 years ago for India. Once you get to the front of that queue, you need to "adjust status" which means a physical exam, fingerprinting, and other busy work none of which appear to be based on country of origin. You could end up here for a few months or over a year, it's hard to know until you find out what USCIS service center is processing your case and can look up historical data. Until you get to the end of this you're technically still bound to your employer though there are some loopholes. Adjustment of status can take sufficiently long that the government passed a law in 2000 allowing green card petitions in this state to be fully portable across employers after 180 days.
- ambrood 12y ago
  most employers typically don't start your greencard application until you've been working for them for 1-2 years.

by ambrood 12y ago

And how does one get a green card in this country pray tell? One need to have an underlying immigration status in this country while you begin your decade long process for a gc.

Joky 12y ago

You don't need to have an underlying immigration status in the US to start the application (according to a lawyer I asked this question). And it takes a decade only if you come from India (or other country that provided a large number of immigrant). For many countries it is a matter of months.

gabbo 12y ago
In all but the most special/uncommon cases it's likely to take more than months (unless you also consider 9-12 months to be a matter of months). I know many, many engineers who have gone through the US immigration process. Some had good experiences, some had bad ones, but I don't know anyone for whom the entire process took a matter of months - and their employers are the sort who would spend quite a bit of money to move things faster if they could. For employment-based green cards you generally have to get PERM labor certification (where the sponsoring employer literally advertises your job and has to show that there aren't American citizens/green card holders who can do it). That takes a while on its own (weeks, generally months). Then depending on your education/experience, you get a date which corresponds to your position in an immigrant visa queue. The more education/experience you have the higher the queue you can sit in, and it's done by birth country (not citizenship). There are separate queues for China, India, Mexico, Philippines, and "everywhere else." If you have a graduate degree, significant job experience directly related to the US position, or some skill the lawyers can pass off as highly rare/sought after, you might end up in the EB-1/EB-2 queues which are quite short (if you entered the queue today you'd already be at the front). In which case the processing time might only be a few weeks/months. Or you could end up in the EB-3 queue (bachelor's or equivalent experience a.k.a. many software engineers). Right now people who entered the queue 2 years ago are at the front if they're not from China/India/Mexico/Philippines (http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-for-december-2014.html http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy...), 4 years ago for China, and 11 years ago for India. Once you get to the front of that queue, you need to "adjust status" which means a physical exam, fingerprinting, and other busy work none of which appear to be based on country of origin. You could end up here for a few months or over a year, it's hard to know until you find out what USCIS service center is processing your case and can look up historical data. Until you get to the end of this you're technically still bound to your employer though there are some loopholes. Adjustment of status can take sufficiently long that the government passed a law in 2000 allowing green card petitions in this state to be fully portable across employers after 180 days.
ambrood 12y ago
most employers typically don't start your greencard application until you've been working for them for 1-2 years.