Permanent Residency through Employment
Labor Certification or PERM: Recruiting Foreign Talent
Are you an employer who wishes to sponsor a valuable foreign national employee for permanent residency, commonly called a “green card". The business immigration attorneys at Byrd & Associates can help your HR professionals navigate through this complicated process. The first step to obtaining a green card for many employees is called a labor certification, referred to as PERM. To review employment categories that do not require a labor certification, visit our EB-1 page.
In brief, the labor certification PERM process requires the petitioning employer to conduct a series of recruitment activities to test job market before filing the application. If no able, willing and qualified US citizen or permanent resident applicant is found through the recruitment process, the employer can submit the PERM labor certification.
Under PERM, no supporting documents are submitted at the time of filing. However, the petitioning employer is required to have all supporting documents ready prior to filing and should submit to DOL within 30 days if the case is chosen by DOL for auditing. An electronically filed PERM labor certification application is expected to be adjudicated in around 45-60 days according to the Department of Labor (DOL). PERM labor certification is an extremely complicated procedure.
We encourage you to contact the firm for a confidential consultation with an experienced business immigration attorney. Please telephone us in our San Jose office at (408) 995-3268, or in our San Francisco office at (415) 362-2285 to schedule a confidential telephone or in-office consultation. You can also contact us conveniently online. We will carefully analyze the facts in your case to find your company’s successful business immigration solution.
Immigrant Petition for Permanent Worker
The second stage in many employment-based green card cases involves the filing of an immigrant petition. After an employer successfully obtains a labor certification, if required, the employer must file an immigrant petition for the foreign national beneficiary of the labor certification within six months of obtaining the labor certification. The two main purposes of the employment-based immigrant petition are to demonstrate that the employer is in a good financial position and is capable of paying the salary advertised in the labor certification, and to place the Beneficiary of the labor certification in an employment-based preference category. The business immigration attorneys at Byrd & Associates can help employers prepare and file the petition and appropriate financial documentation.
Employment-Based Adjustment of Status
An Adjustment of Status application, or Form I-485 application, is the final step for a foreign national who is physically in the United States to obtain a Green Card. If the foreign national is residing abroad, the prospective employee can go through consular processing at a local embassy with jurisdiction over the case and obtain an immigrant visa to enter the U.S. as a permanent resident. The business immigration attorneys at Byrd & Associates can help employees with this process even if our attorneys did not represent the sponsoring employer with prior labor certification and immigrant petition filings.
