New Orleans Work Visa Lawyers

According to the US State Department, there are five categories of “permanent” employment for immigrants in America:

• Employment First Preference (E1): Priority Worker and Persons of Extraordinary Ability. This category has three sub-groups.
  • Persons with extraordinary ability – in the sciences, education, business, arts, or athletics. Applicants need supporting documentation showing expertise in their field and national or international acclaim. These applicants don’t need a specific job offer – provided they are coming to America to continue work in their field of expertise. These applicants can file their own Immigrant Petitions for Alien Worker, Form I-140. They don’t need an employer to sponsor them.
  • Outstanding professors and researchers – who have three or more years of teaching or research experience and are recognized internationally. The applicant must be “coming to the U.S. to pursue tenure, tenure track teaching, or a comparable research position at a university or other institution of higher education.” The applicant must have a job offer and the employer files the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, with the USCIS.
  • Multinational managers or executives– “who have been employed for at least one of the three preceding years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer.”  The applicant’s foreign employment “must have been in a managerial or executive capacity, and the applicant must be coming to work in a managerial or executive capacity.” There must be a job offer. The employer files the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, with the USCIS.
• Employment Second Preference (E2). The category is for professionals who have advanced degrees and for persons of exceptional ability. The applicant must have a labor certification approved by the US Department of Labor. An employer must have offered the applicant a job and filed the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-40. Applicants may be eligible for an exemption, called a National Interest Waiver (NIW) from the job offer and labor certification requirement – in which event the applicant can file his/her Form I-140. The State Department states that this category of employment applicant receives “28.6 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas, plus any unused visas from the Employment First Preference category.”
  • There are two subgroups. Generally, these are professionals with an advanced degree and five years’ experience in the field of the degree – and people with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. “Exceptional ability means having a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered in the sciences, arts, or business.”
• Employment Third Preference (E3): Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Unskilled Workers (Other Workers). The employer must file the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, and the labor certification request. The group of workers also receives 28.6 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas, plus any unused visas from the Employment First Preference and Second Preference categories.
  • There are three subgroups.
    • Skilled workers. These workers must have a minimum of 2 years’ training or work experience that is not temporary or seasonal. These jobs shouldn’t be able to be filled by the current US labor pool. A job offer and labor certification are required.
    • Professionals. These workers are members of the professions whose jobs require at least a baccalaureate degree from a U.S. university or college or its foreign equivalent degree. The work must not be able to be filled by current US professionals. A job offer and a labor certification are required.
    • Unskilled workers (Other workers)are persons capable of filling positions that require less than two years training or experience that are not temporary or seasonal and where qualified US workers are not available. A job offer and a labor certification are required.
  • Employment Fourth Preference (E4): Certain Special Immigrants. This group receives 7.1 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas. We’ll explain the requirements. There are many subgroups including broadcasters, religious ministers, certain former employees of the Panama Canal Zone, Iraqi and Afghan interpreters or nationals, certain religious workers, and other subcategories.
  • Employment Fifth Preference (E5): Immigrant Investors. This category is for certain foreign investors in new commercial enterprises that provide US jobs.

Once the immigrant petition is approved, USCIS sends the petition to the National Visa Center (NVC). The NVC will advise the applicant of the steps needed to formally be granted LPR status – once an applicant’s “priority date meets the most recent qualifying date. “