How hard is it for International Engineers to work in the US

<p>I was looking at some engineering position openings and quite a few of them asked for US citizens. Most of these were positions were in defense contractors so I understand where they are coming from but in general how plausible is it for an international , say aerospace, engineer to find work in his field in the US. I would like to work in the astronautical industry in particular but working with defense sytstems is something I would like to take a look at. There is no aerospace or defense industry or anything remotely close to that in the Bahamas so an aerospace/mechanical engineer's skills would best be suited for use in another country.</p>

<p>I am an intern at a defense contractor, where many of the full time employees are originally from different countries. I am not positive, but I believe obtaining US citizenship may be required before being hired. So, if you are willing to go through obtaining citizenship, it is definitely a huge possibility of working in the industry as an aerospace engineer.</p>

<p>If you need any sort of security clearance (or are working with export regulated equipment and are don't have citizenship from certain nations), then yes you likely will need to become naturalized.</p>