Can Student Visa Holders Apply for a Green Card?
This article was submitted to and published in The Economic Times.
Link to Rajiv's Author Page in The Economic Times.
This article was submitted to and published in The Economic Times.
Link to Rajiv's Author Page in The Economic Times.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today new policy guidance that eliminates the need for individuals who have applied for a change of status (COS) to F-1 student to apply to change or extend their nonimmigrant status while their initial F-1 COS application is pending.
We have just received another H-1 approval for an end-client placement. There were two intervening vendors and the end-client declined to provide a letter stating that there is no requirement in law for them to provide any such letter. We had to get together convincing secondary evidence. I was highly doubtful we will get the approval, but we did. So, despite the January 8 memo from USCIS, there is life yet for consulting industry.
We were recently retained at the I-140 Appeal stage for an I-140 denied on grounds of fraud/willful misrepresentation. USCIS denied the I-140 citing inconsistencies between the ETA 9089 job requirements, the advertisements, and a subsequent letter sent by petitioner with an RFE pertaining to the job requirements. Due to what USCIS termed as "material inconsistencies," the I-140 was denied on the grounds that the labor certification submitted was gained through fraud or willful misrepresentation of a material fact.
1 Green Card through PERM, Step 1 - The PERM process
1.1 Preliminary points
1.1.1 Most commonly used process and is based upon a permanent, full-time job offer
1.1.2 Involves testing the labor market for a defined job
1.1.3 Green card is for a "future job"
1.1.4 Employment-based categories 2 and 3 (EB-2, EB-3)
1.1.5 WE MUST act honestly and in good faith
1.1.6 There are three steps: PERM, I-140, and I-485 OR consular processing
The following settlement was reached in Li v. USCIS in favor of the OPT and STEM OPT applicant students suffering from delays and rejections:
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We filed a petition premium processing for the beneficiary who qualified based on his original contributions, publication record, featured research work in the media and service as a judge of the works of his research peers. USCIS seems to have accepted the veracity of our claim for outstanding ability without a question. We were issued a request for evidence asking only for proof of the petitioner’s ability to pay. We supplied the most recent financial report of the petitioner, a letter from the CFO as well as copies of the beneficiaries W2 and most recent pay stubs.
We filed a petition premium processing for the beneficiary who qualified based on her extraordinary engineering contributions. Her substantial and highly scientific contributions paved the way for commercial manufacturing of flexible displays by major, well-known display manufacturing companies. The beneficiary’s commercialized research was featured on Amazon.com. She had over eight years of research experience in the nanotechnology field resulting in multiple patents.
We were retained by a client who was in USA on B-2 status and wished to apply for green card through EB-5 investor/entrepreneur category. We obtained a B-2 extension and simultaneously filed the EB-5 petition. Client was in the process of investing $1 Million in an existing business. $500,000.00 of the investment was in the form of cash (some portion of which was gift money) and for the remaining $500,000.00, a promissory note was executed and secured by foreign personal assets of client.
Our client recently received his green card after a long journey with USCIS. He approached us following a denial of his I-140 (NIW, physician in medically underserved area). The applicant had filed the I-140 and I-485 and then moved to a different state while the applications were pending. There had been no action on the file for 2 years. He submitted a service request with USCIS requesting a status update. USCIS issued a Request for Evidence shortly after the applicant’s move, which was sent to the original address and ultimately returned undelivered.
A recruiting firm for accountants retained our services to file an H-1B petition for a recruiter. Typically, it is difficult to justify that the position of a recruiter qualifies as an H-1B level occupation. Our petition to USCIS argued, however, that even though recruiters do not generally qualify as a specialty level occupation, the present case is different because the beneficiary will be hired as an International Accounting/Finance Recruiter.
EB1 – Outstanding Researcher – Seed Technology/Plant Science
We have received two interesting B-2 extensions. It has been my view that under certain circumstances B-2 can and should be permitted by USCIS to be used even where the applicant has an immigrant intent or is otherwise staying longer than usual in USA. Apparently, USCIS agrees.
We had a Labor certification case filed for an IT professional. The requirements were Bachelor's degree and 5 years of experience. We filed I-140 under EB-2 category. After approximately 8 months, USCIS sent us an RFE saying Bachelor's plus five years would not qualify under EB2 unless the experience required is progressive in nature. We knew that USCIS was wrong under the circumstances of the case, but an argument with the government was unnecessary because the EB-3 priority dates were then current.
We have recently won a case for a physician working in several rural clinics as well as his private practice within a medically underserved area. We were retained following a denial of the I-140 petition for NIW. We filed an appeal as well as an amended (new) I-140 application to show that the physician had met the 5-year service requirements for an NIW. The applicant had moved from one medically underserved area to another while the original I-140 was pending. The issue was whether an “amendment” could have been filed in this case to notify USCIS of the move without an approved I-140.
The sponsoring employer was a small company (less than 20 employees) that was sponsoring the brother of the president. The Labor Certification was audited due to the familial relationship, which is a significant issue in the PERM process. We successfully responded by proving that the relationship between the president and the applicant did not influence or affect the PERM Processing. The I-140 petition and I-485 petitions were approved, and the applicant received his permanent residency.
The head-quarters for the sponsoring employer were located outside the United States. The applicant worked in the United States at a branch office, which had fewer than 5 employees. Because of the head-quarters location and the US branch office size, the DOL questioned the existence of the company in the United States. We responded with evidence of the sponsoring employer’s business in the United States and the PERM Petition was certified.
We filed an EB-1, Outstanding Researcher petition premium processing for the beneficiary who qualified based on her extraordinary contributions in applied sciences. Her substantial and highly innovative contributions paved the way for commercial manufacturing of flexible displays by major, well-known display manufacturing companies. The beneficiary’s commercialized research was well documented. She has over eight years of research experience in the nanotechnology field producing a multitude of patents.
In a case decided yesterday, we had filed an appeal to BALCA against a PERM denial by the Certifying Officer (“CO”). The ground for denial was that the Job Order did not provide the exact salary offered to the foreign worker. We showed in our appeal that the fault lay with the Job Order form of the State Workforce Agency. The form did not permit us to enter the higher end of the wage range for our job, where we had offered a wage range instead of an exact figure. The CO appears to have agreed with us and has withdrawn denial and certified our case.
We were approached by an employer in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry to respond to an RFE (Request for Evidence) for an Operations Research Analyst. The RFE indicated that the job duties were vague, and did not allow the USCIS to ascertain the minimum requirements for the position, or determine whether it constituted a specialty occupation.
We assisted in the filing of an H-1B petition for a newly established company in the healthcare industry for a computer and information systems manager. We received a request for evidence (RFE), asking for details about the employer and questioning the employee’s qualifications.
In this case, the petitioning green card holder filed forms I-130 and I-485 for her second husband, whom she had been married to for less than five years since obtaining her lawful permanent resident status based on her first marriage, which was to a U.S. citizen. That marriage ended in a divorce.
We responded to a Form I-485 Request for Evidence to prove that approximately a decade ago the permanent residency applicant had, in fact, attended two U.S. universities as he had claimed in previously approved petitions. Both universities had been certified by ICE under its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) during the applicant’s attendance.