Living
Residence Visa
Millions of people come to the US each year for a visit; many more come with the intention of making it their home. There are several ways you can go about becoming a permanent resident and ultimately a citizen of the US.
Lawful Permanent Resident Status (LPR)
People with this status, while not American citizens, have the right to live and work in the United States for as long as they wish to do so. They are issued ‘Green Cards’, and have no further need to obtain special permission to work or own property. If you are seeking LPR status, there are several different avenues you may take, depending upon your age, marital or employment status, and even the country in which you were born.
The State Department regularly releases a bulletin informing petitioners what month and year it is currently processing, by country and preference category. This will allow you to approximate when you will receive your visa number.
Immigration through a Relative
Historically, it has been common to obtain a Green Card through a family member who is already a citizen or legal permanent resident of the United States. The procedure for obtaining a visa in this manner is fairly simple.
A relative willing to ‘sponsor’ you must fill out Form I-130 (petition for alien relative), and file it with the USCIS. Your relative must be able to prove, through proper documentation, their relationship to you, that they are in fact a US citizen or have LPR status, and that they can support you at 125% above the mandated poverty level.
If and when the USCIS approves the petition, the Department of State’s National Visa Center will then notify you as to whether an immigrant visa number is available. When a number does become available, you must then apply to have a number assigned to you. How you apply depends on whether or not you are already in the United States. If you are, you must file Form I-485, which is the application to change your status to that of Legal Permanent Resident. If you are not in the United States, you must go to a US consulate servicing office where you live.
US Citizens can sponsor their children of any age, and their parents or siblings, as long as the citizen is at least 21. Those with LPR status (and not citizenship) may sponsor their spouses or unmarried children of any age.
In addition, visas in this category operate on the preference system. Immediate relatives of United States citizens, such as parents, spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21 do not have to wait for a visa number once the visa petition is approved by USCIS; the number will immediately become available. Other relatives, or relatives of sponsors with LPR status, must wait for a number according to a set of preferences. The first preference is for unmarried sons or daughters aged 21 or older. Second preference is spouses of people with LPR status, the couple’s unmarried children under the age of 21, or the sponsor’s unmarried children of any age. Third preference is married sons or daughters of US citizens, and fourth preference is the brothers or sisters of adult US citizens.
The USCIS will notify petitioners as to whether their petition has been approved. Approved visas are sent to the Department of State’s National Visa Center, which will then notify the petitioner when the petition is received, and again when the number becomes available. The petitioner does not need to contact the National Visa Center unless there is an important change in information, such as the petitioner’s address or a change in the age (reaching 21) or marital status of the petitioner or sponsor.
Immigration through Investment
Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that 10,000 immigrant visas be set aside each year to those seeking LPR status based on involvement in a ‘new commercial enterprise’.
Under a pilot programme, 5,000 of these visas are reserved for those applicants in a designated ‘regional centre’. A regional centre is a specific area that has been approved by the United States government. The programme’s aim is to foster economic growth through increased export sales, improved regional productivity, the creation of new jobs, and increased capital investment.
Foreign investors must demonstrate that the investment is being made within an approved regional centre, and that it will achieve the goals of the programme. Under this programme, investors may come to the United States alone or with their spouses and unmarried children.
Investors must be able to prove that they are involved with a ‘qualified’ investment, and that this investment will benefit the US economy. A qualified investment may either be a new enterprise, or a pre-existing enterprise which the investor purchases and simultaneously reorganises so that it is essentially new, or that the investor has expanded an existing business by 140% (either in jobs or in net worth), or by preserving all existing jobs in a failing business that has lost 20% of its net worth in the last one or two years. The investor must invest $1 million (or at least $500,000 if the investment is being made in an area experiencing an unemployment rate of 150% and upwards).
To apply, the investor must file USCIS Form I-526 (immigrant petition by alien entrepreneur). The applicant must also provide documents proving that they meet all above requirements. Once the I-526 is approved, investors already living in the United States can file a I-485 (application to register permanent or adjust status, or Form I-829, petition by entrepreneur to remove conditions). These forms must be filed within 90 days before the second anniversary of the investor’s admission to the country as a conditional resident.
Immigration through Employment
A foreign national may obtain LPR status through an offer of permanent employment in the United States. In cases such as this, the employer is the sponsor and petitioner and the foreign national is the applicant and beneficiary.
Firstly, the employer and the person seeking LPR status must check whether they are eligible for such status under USCIS guidelines. The employer should fill out Form ETA 750 (labour certification request), and submit it to the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (qualified doctors who are practising in an area deemed ‘underserved’ by the Department of Health and Human Services
are exempt from this requirement). Be sure to check with the Department of Labor to find out whether the employment category you are filing under requires this form.
The employer must then file visa petition Form I-140 (petition for alien worker). If it has been determined that you must file a Labor Certification Request, your employer should not file Form I-140 until the Labor Certification has been granted.
The Department of State then gives the applicant a visa number, even if the applicant is already in the US. As with the other categories, if the applicant is in the US, he or she must file form I-485 to adjust status – if he or she is not in the US, then he or she must go to the US consulate office in the area.
There are specific categories depending on what sort of work you do, and each category has its own rules for filing. You may check the UCSIS website to find out which category you fall into as well as the procedures your potential employer must follow.
Immigration through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program
Yes it’s true - you can actually win LPR status in the US through a lottery programme. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the US grants 55,000 visas every year to people from countries with low rates of immigration. Each year the Department of States releases a list of eligible countries (those which have sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the US within the last five years).
Applicants must follow Department of State’s directions to the last detail. These directions are released in press releases and published in the Federal Register, usually each August – registration for the lottery of that fiscal year is usually in October. There is no fee to enter the lottery. However, if you win you will have to pay both a fee for the immigrant visa and a separate lottery surcharge.
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that only one entry per applicant may be submitted. Somebody else may apply on your behalf, but if the State Department receives more than one entry for you, you will be disqualified, even if one of those entries was sent in by someone else.
To apply, first make sure that you are a citizen of a country that meets the State Department’s eligibility requirement – this means that the country of your birth has not sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US within the last five years. If you are not from an eligible country but your spouse is, you can enter by claiming your spouse’s country, as long as you are both included on the lottery entry, you are both issued visas, and you both enter the US at the same time.
Even if you were not born in an eligible country, you can still apply for the lottery if your parents were born in an eligible country but did not live there when you were born. To put it simply, if your parents were simply visiting, studying in or temporarily stationed in the ineligible country at the time of your birth, then they were not living there under the definition and you can ‘claim’ their country for the purposes of the lottery.
Entries by mail are not currently accepted and you must apply electronically through the website. The information you have to fill in on the electronic form includes your full name, your date of birth, your gender, the city and country of your birth, your country of eligibility, photos (of yourself, your spouse, and each unmarried child under 21), your mailing address, your current country of residence, the highest level of education that you have attained, your marital status, how many children you have (all of your unmarried children under 21, including adopted children), and detailed information on your spouse.
If you are selected, you must get your lottery visa, or adjust your status, by the end of the fiscal year. The death of a selected entrant disqualifies the application.
Finally, remember that selection of your application does not guarantee that you will get a visa. Applicants must be eligible for LPR under USCIS guidelines, must have a high school diploma (or equivalent), or at least two year’s work experience within the last five years. For further details, please see the Department of Labor website (www.dol.gov).
Each year the Department of State randomly selects 110,000 applicants from all of the entries. However, there are only 55,000 visas available in total through this programme. Some of the applicants will be ineligible for immigration, and others may choose not to pursue a visa. The diversity visa programme year ends once all 55,000 visas have been issued.
LPR Under the Registry Provision of the Immigration & Nationality Act
If you have been living in the US since before January 1 1972, you may be able to get LPR status, even if you are living in the US illegally, or if you initially entered the country illegally. However, you must have lived in the US continuously since before that date in order to qualify. And, as always, you must otherwise qualify for LPR status under USCIS regulations. This includes showing that you are of ‘good moral character’, and that you are not and have never been involved in any terrorist activities or alien smuggling. In addition, if law enforcement has discovered that you are here illegally, and you fail to appear at your removal hearing or fail to leave the country after agreeing to do so, you will be ineligible for LPR under the registry provision for a period of 10 years.
To apply under this provision, you need to submit Form I-485 with the filing fee, as well as Form G-325, with evidence that you have lived in the US continuously since before January 1 1972, to the USCIS office having jurisdiction where you live.
While your case is pending, you may apply for a work permit (by filing Form I-765) so that you can support yourself while you wait. Once you are awarded LPR status you will no longer need a work permit - your Green Card will prove that you are authorised to work in the US. The District Director of the USCIS will then determine your eligibility. There is no appeal from this decision, although you can petition to renew your application before an immigration judge.
In the seemingly endless list of forms you will have to fill out when applying for LPR status in the US, Form I-485 (application to register permanent resident or adjust status) is especially important, as you will have to use this form whenever you are applying while already in the United States. However, there is also other documentation that must be included when you are using Form I-485, such as two colour photos of yourself taken within the past 30 days, a medical examination sheet (Form I-693), and a biographic data sheet (Form G-325A). In addition, you must provide documents that support the underlying reason for using I-485. For example, if someone is sponsoring you, you must submit Form I-864 (Affidavit of Support). If you have been admitted as a fiance(e) of a US citizen, you must provide a copy of the fiance(e) petition approval notice and your marriage certificate.
Becoming a Citizen
As with all matters of immigration, becoming a US citizen is governed by the Immigration and Nationalization Act. This is only a brief overview of the seven major requirements – if you wish to become a citizen you should do so with the help of an immigration attorney.
Firstly, you need to live in the US, and be present there for an uninterrupted period of time. You must also have lived in a particular district of the USCIS before you file. Although the US does not have an official language, you must be able to read, write and speak English before becoming a citizen, and you must also know a certain amount about US history and the structure of its government. While these first four requirements are important, they may be waived under certain circumstances (for example, if you are applying for citizenship through your marriage to a US citizen). The following three, however, are never waived. You must show that you have good moral character, that you believe in the philosophies of the US Constitution, and that you are loyal to the US.
Lawful Permanent Resident Status (LPR)
People with this status, while not American citizens, have the right to live and work in the United States for as long as they wish to do so. They are issued ‘Green Cards’, and have no further need to obtain special permission to work or own property. If you are seeking LPR status, there are several different avenues you may take, depending upon your age, marital or employment status, and even the country in which you were born.
The State Department regularly releases a bulletin informing petitioners what month and year it is currently processing, by country and preference category. This will allow you to approximate when you will receive your visa number.
Immigration through a Relative
Historically, it has been common to obtain a Green Card through a family member who is already a citizen or legal permanent resident of the United States. The procedure for obtaining a visa in this manner is fairly simple.
A relative willing to ‘sponsor’ you must fill out Form I-130 (petition for alien relative), and file it with the USCIS. Your relative must be able to prove, through proper documentation, their relationship to you, that they are in fact a US citizen or have LPR status, and that they can support you at 125% above the mandated poverty level.
If and when the USCIS approves the petition, the Department of State’s National Visa Center will then notify you as to whether an immigrant visa number is available. When a number does become available, you must then apply to have a number assigned to you. How you apply depends on whether or not you are already in the United States. If you are, you must file Form I-485, which is the application to change your status to that of Legal Permanent Resident. If you are not in the United States, you must go to a US consulate servicing office where you live.
US Citizens can sponsor their children of any age, and their parents or siblings, as long as the citizen is at least 21. Those with LPR status (and not citizenship) may sponsor their spouses or unmarried children of any age.
In addition, visas in this category operate on the preference system. Immediate relatives of United States citizens, such as parents, spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21 do not have to wait for a visa number once the visa petition is approved by USCIS; the number will immediately become available. Other relatives, or relatives of sponsors with LPR status, must wait for a number according to a set of preferences. The first preference is for unmarried sons or daughters aged 21 or older. Second preference is spouses of people with LPR status, the couple’s unmarried children under the age of 21, or the sponsor’s unmarried children of any age. Third preference is married sons or daughters of US citizens, and fourth preference is the brothers or sisters of adult US citizens.
The USCIS will notify petitioners as to whether their petition has been approved. Approved visas are sent to the Department of State’s National Visa Center, which will then notify the petitioner when the petition is received, and again when the number becomes available. The petitioner does not need to contact the National Visa Center unless there is an important change in information, such as the petitioner’s address or a change in the age (reaching 21) or marital status of the petitioner or sponsor.
Immigration through Investment
Section 203(b)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that 10,000 immigrant visas be set aside each year to those seeking LPR status based on involvement in a ‘new commercial enterprise’.
Under a pilot programme, 5,000 of these visas are reserved for those applicants in a designated ‘regional centre’. A regional centre is a specific area that has been approved by the United States government. The programme’s aim is to foster economic growth through increased export sales, improved regional productivity, the creation of new jobs, and increased capital investment.
Foreign investors must demonstrate that the investment is being made within an approved regional centre, and that it will achieve the goals of the programme. Under this programme, investors may come to the United States alone or with their spouses and unmarried children.
Investors must be able to prove that they are involved with a ‘qualified’ investment, and that this investment will benefit the US economy. A qualified investment may either be a new enterprise, or a pre-existing enterprise which the investor purchases and simultaneously reorganises so that it is essentially new, or that the investor has expanded an existing business by 140% (either in jobs or in net worth), or by preserving all existing jobs in a failing business that has lost 20% of its net worth in the last one or two years. The investor must invest $1 million (or at least $500,000 if the investment is being made in an area experiencing an unemployment rate of 150% and upwards).
To apply, the investor must file USCIS Form I-526 (immigrant petition by alien entrepreneur). The applicant must also provide documents proving that they meet all above requirements. Once the I-526 is approved, investors already living in the United States can file a I-485 (application to register permanent or adjust status, or Form I-829, petition by entrepreneur to remove conditions). These forms must be filed within 90 days before the second anniversary of the investor’s admission to the country as a conditional resident.
Immigration through Employment
A foreign national may obtain LPR status through an offer of permanent employment in the United States. In cases such as this, the employer is the sponsor and petitioner and the foreign national is the applicant and beneficiary.
Firstly, the employer and the person seeking LPR status must check whether they are eligible for such status under USCIS guidelines. The employer should fill out Form ETA 750 (labour certification request), and submit it to the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (qualified doctors who are practising in an area deemed ‘underserved’ by the Department of Health and Human Services
are exempt from this requirement). Be sure to check with the Department of Labor to find out whether the employment category you are filing under requires this form.
The employer must then file visa petition Form I-140 (petition for alien worker). If it has been determined that you must file a Labor Certification Request, your employer should not file Form I-140 until the Labor Certification has been granted.
The Department of State then gives the applicant a visa number, even if the applicant is already in the US. As with the other categories, if the applicant is in the US, he or she must file form I-485 to adjust status – if he or she is not in the US, then he or she must go to the US consulate office in the area.
There are specific categories depending on what sort of work you do, and each category has its own rules for filing. You may check the UCSIS website to find out which category you fall into as well as the procedures your potential employer must follow.
Immigration through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program
Yes it’s true - you can actually win LPR status in the US through a lottery programme. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the US grants 55,000 visas every year to people from countries with low rates of immigration. Each year the Department of States releases a list of eligible countries (those which have sent less than 50,000 immigrants to the US within the last five years).
Applicants must follow Department of State’s directions to the last detail. These directions are released in press releases and published in the Federal Register, usually each August – registration for the lottery of that fiscal year is usually in October. There is no fee to enter the lottery. However, if you win you will have to pay both a fee for the immigrant visa and a separate lottery surcharge.
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that only one entry per applicant may be submitted. Somebody else may apply on your behalf, but if the State Department receives more than one entry for you, you will be disqualified, even if one of those entries was sent in by someone else.
To apply, first make sure that you are a citizen of a country that meets the State Department’s eligibility requirement – this means that the country of your birth has not sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US within the last five years. If you are not from an eligible country but your spouse is, you can enter by claiming your spouse’s country, as long as you are both included on the lottery entry, you are both issued visas, and you both enter the US at the same time.
Even if you were not born in an eligible country, you can still apply for the lottery if your parents were born in an eligible country but did not live there when you were born. To put it simply, if your parents were simply visiting, studying in or temporarily stationed in the ineligible country at the time of your birth, then they were not living there under the definition and you can ‘claim’ their country for the purposes of the lottery.
Entries by mail are not currently accepted and you must apply electronically through the website. The information you have to fill in on the electronic form includes your full name, your date of birth, your gender, the city and country of your birth, your country of eligibility, photos (of yourself, your spouse, and each unmarried child under 21), your mailing address, your current country of residence, the highest level of education that you have attained, your marital status, how many children you have (all of your unmarried children under 21, including adopted children), and detailed information on your spouse.
If you are selected, you must get your lottery visa, or adjust your status, by the end of the fiscal year. The death of a selected entrant disqualifies the application.
Finally, remember that selection of your application does not guarantee that you will get a visa. Applicants must be eligible for LPR under USCIS guidelines, must have a high school diploma (or equivalent), or at least two year’s work experience within the last five years. For further details, please see the Department of Labor website (www.dol.gov).
Each year the Department of State randomly selects 110,000 applicants from all of the entries. However, there are only 55,000 visas available in total through this programme. Some of the applicants will be ineligible for immigration, and others may choose not to pursue a visa. The diversity visa programme year ends once all 55,000 visas have been issued.
LPR Under the Registry Provision of the Immigration & Nationality Act
If you have been living in the US since before January 1 1972, you may be able to get LPR status, even if you are living in the US illegally, or if you initially entered the country illegally. However, you must have lived in the US continuously since before that date in order to qualify. And, as always, you must otherwise qualify for LPR status under USCIS regulations. This includes showing that you are of ‘good moral character’, and that you are not and have never been involved in any terrorist activities or alien smuggling. In addition, if law enforcement has discovered that you are here illegally, and you fail to appear at your removal hearing or fail to leave the country after agreeing to do so, you will be ineligible for LPR under the registry provision for a period of 10 years.
To apply under this provision, you need to submit Form I-485 with the filing fee, as well as Form G-325, with evidence that you have lived in the US continuously since before January 1 1972, to the USCIS office having jurisdiction where you live.
While your case is pending, you may apply for a work permit (by filing Form I-765) so that you can support yourself while you wait. Once you are awarded LPR status you will no longer need a work permit - your Green Card will prove that you are authorised to work in the US. The District Director of the USCIS will then determine your eligibility. There is no appeal from this decision, although you can petition to renew your application before an immigration judge.
In the seemingly endless list of forms you will have to fill out when applying for LPR status in the US, Form I-485 (application to register permanent resident or adjust status) is especially important, as you will have to use this form whenever you are applying while already in the United States. However, there is also other documentation that must be included when you are using Form I-485, such as two colour photos of yourself taken within the past 30 days, a medical examination sheet (Form I-693), and a biographic data sheet (Form G-325A). In addition, you must provide documents that support the underlying reason for using I-485. For example, if someone is sponsoring you, you must submit Form I-864 (Affidavit of Support). If you have been admitted as a fiance(e) of a US citizen, you must provide a copy of the fiance(e) petition approval notice and your marriage certificate.
Becoming a Citizen
As with all matters of immigration, becoming a US citizen is governed by the Immigration and Nationalization Act. This is only a brief overview of the seven major requirements – if you wish to become a citizen you should do so with the help of an immigration attorney.
Firstly, you need to live in the US, and be present there for an uninterrupted period of time. You must also have lived in a particular district of the USCIS before you file. Although the US does not have an official language, you must be able to read, write and speak English before becoming a citizen, and you must also know a certain amount about US history and the structure of its government. While these first four requirements are important, they may be waived under certain circumstances (for example, if you are applying for citizenship through your marriage to a US citizen). The following three, however, are never waived. You must show that you have good moral character, that you believe in the philosophies of the US Constitution, and that you are loyal to the US.
