How to stay in America

If you want to stay in the United States for a long time, you can only apply for an American green card. Legal permanent residents who have lived in the United States as permanent residents for five years (or have been married to American citizens for three years) and meet all the conditions listed by the Immigration Bureau can apply for becoming American citizens.

Procedures for professional immigrants to apply for green cards:

Generally speaking, professional immigrants need to apply for a green card from the service center of the US Immigration Service. Although after March 2003, the Immigration Bureau was placed under the jurisdiction of the newly established Department of Homeland Security and renamed the Citizenship and Immigration Service Bureau, the work of handling various immigration applications was still handled by the original four sub-regional centers.

According to American immigration law, the professional immigration application (form 1- 140) can be submitted at the same time as the green card application (form I-485), or it can be applied separately. This provides different options for applicants.

Professional immigrants are divided into five categories. The first priority includes special talents, outstanding researchers and professors, and managers of multinational companies. These three types of applicants can directly apply for I- 140 and I-485 without applying for a work permit.

The second priority of professional immigrants includes national interests. Like the first priority three types of applications, such applications can also be submitted directly to I- 140 and I-485. The second priority also includes applications for master's degree or above. This kind of application and all kinds of applications with the third priority, including college graduates, applications with two years' work experience and applications without two years' work experience, must apply for a work permit first. I- 140 and I-485 applications can only be submitted after the work permit application is approved. In addition, the fourth priority (special immigrants) and the fifth priority (investment immigrants) must be approved before they can apply for I-486.

The advantages of applying for I- 140 and I-485 at the same time are:

First, speed up the application process and reduce the waiting time for green cards (at least in theory);

Second, you can apply for travel documents and freely enter and leave the United States;

Third, you can apply for a work permit and the whole family can work;

Fourth, you can keep your legal identity, which is very important for people whose identity is about to expire, such as H- 1, B- 1. The disadvantage of applying for I- 140 and I-485 at the same time is that if I- 140 cannot be approved, the application for I-485 and its related travel documents and work cards will also be rejected. In addition to the impact on identity, the application fee alone will be a big loss. Secondly, if I- 140 is refused a visa after leaving the United States with a travel document, whether I can return to the United States and what impact it will have on the applicant's non-immigrant status are all unresolved issues. Furthermore, since the Immigration Bureau allowed I- 140 and I-485 to declare together in August 2002, the approval time of I-485 has not been shortened, but has become longer. This point also needs to be considered when I- 140 and I-485 apply, at least for now.

Procedures for relative immigrants to apply for green cards:

In the application for relative immigration, parents, spouses and minor children of citizens are immediate family members, and I- 130 (application form for relative immigration) and I-485 can be submitted directly. Other application categories include adult unmarried children of citizens, spouses and adult unmarried children of permanent residents, married children of citizens and brothers and sisters of citizens. These types of applications can only be submitted to I-485 after I- 130 application is approved.

An application for a relative's immigration green card must be made at the local office of the Immigration Bureau in the city where he lives. It can be delivered by mail or by a lawyer in person, which can save a lot of processing time. In San Diego, lawyers deliver documents, and you can get a work card on the same day. The time for applying for a US Re-entry Permit can also be shortened a lot. The green card of relative immigrants is generally approved after an interview with the immigration staff. How to prepare for the interview is particularly important for the applicants of relative immigration, especially those who apply for a green card after marrying an American citizen. I will introduce it in detail in another article.

The documents required for relatives to apply for a green card are basically the same as those listed above, and only I- 130 form or I- 130 approval notice is required. In addition, different immigration offices have different requirements for medical examination forms. Some need to be provided at the time of application, and some need to be provided at the interview. Moreover, the relative immigration application needs more detailed financial guarantee (I-864 form) and supporting documents, which the applicant should pay serious attention to.

Recently, the Immigration Bureau plans to set up a Missouri sub-center, and all the documents of relatives applying for immigration must be sent to this sub-center for preliminary examination, and then sent back to the local office of the Immigration Bureau for processing. We don't know how this change will affect the application for green card by immigrant relatives, especially whether it will cause a longer delay in processing. According to past experience, the most troublesome thing for immigrants is the communication between departments. In the past, when applicants moved or changed their residence, they lost their documents or the handover between the two immigration offices was unclear.

See Baidu Encyclopedia:/view/view1822437.htm.