<p>Hey i just wanted to clear up some points on this
How long do you have to have lived in the US to be eligible for this if you have no family relations etc to go by?
Can you leave the US over this counted time say go to school and go back to your home country for holidays or does it have to be one non broken stay?
What is you go to boarding school in the US starting in grade 11 do those 2 years count as years towards you getting permanent residence?
thanks</p>
<p>I suppose if you are studying in the US, whether in boarding school, university or otherwise, you are under either an F-1 or J-1 visa. These are non-immigrant visas, which means that you cannot apply for green card while under F-1 or J-1. So obviously these years do not count under any residency requirement.</p>
<p>If you are working legally in the US as a white collar worker, you will most probably be under H-1B, which is one of the few dual-intent visas which means you can petition for a green card. </p>
<p>First, your employer must file a labor certification form through PREM detailing that your job cannot be done by an American. The date of that filing is known as the priority date. After the filing, you can then file an I-140 "Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker" for USCIS to establish your eligibility to file the I-485 green card application. You can only file your I-485 when your priority date is earlier than the date published in the Visa Bulletin published by the US Dept. of State. That date is also dependent on your degree, your country of birth and your job type. From I-485 filing to approval can take anywhere from 100 to 500 days.</p>
<p>"Permanent residents" are immigrants who are one step away from acquiring US citizenship. There are only three ways to acquire permanent residency: through family relations, employment (usually with a graduate degree in some obscure speciality) or the lottery. You would know if you were eligible for either one of these.</p>
<p>There's a fourth option if you've got lots of $$$$-"buy" one. Investment-based.</p>
<p>It is not possible to get a green card only with staying a specified time in the U.S. </p>
<p>You see some options in the other posts, another one the Diversity Lottery, where you can win a GC. For more information see Electronic</a> Diversity Visa Lottery</p>
<p>For the answers on all things immigration, you need to spend time at USCIS</a> Home Page</p>
<p>I know it isn't the easiest website to manage, but the information that you need is there.</p>
<p>Wow, i can't believe it's this hard. i've moved all over the world because of my dad's job but i lived in the US for 6 years so I consider myself "American" more than anything.</p>
<p>frankchn, if you do it through an employer, must you tell the employer up front that you are not a citizen/permanent resident? if so, does it decrease your chances of being hired? </p>
<p>this is sort of heart-breaking since I was really hoping to get a job after graduation and staying in the US for the rest of my life, even though I don't have a green card right now.</p>
<p>You cannot just get hired ( legally ) for a job without a proper work visa. We sponsored an international student during his four year college degree..He lived with us. Upon graduation, he was issued a one year work visa. It was conditional that he stay in the country, without going "home" for a visit for the entire year. If he had been hired by a company that was willing to sponsor him for an extended visa , which isn't an easy task to complete , he would've had the chance to extend his visa. Green Card was never an option for him, with the exception of the lottery. Yes, he could've applied but it never happened. Ultimately , he ended up going back to Europe and forfeiting his visa, because his girlfriend could no longer be here. They met while she was here working as a teacher's aid in a cultural exchange between France and the USA... She tried several times to get a job here , but the bottom line is the few jobs she was considered for hired others instead. They didn't want to go through all of the red-tape ( and expense ) with obtaining her visa.
You cannot " buy " a green card, as suggested in a previous post.
My husband is also an immigrant, so we have some experience with the system</p>
<p>thanks for the lengthy explanation lje62! Why did he choose not to apply, if i make ask? Is there anything I could to maybe make it easier for employers to hire me in say, 8 years? I'm planning on going onto grad school in the US as well.</p>
<p>The easy answer to that, bluebubbles is because of the girlfriend. He regrets it now, at least giving up the visa he had for a year. He left us about a year and a half ago and STILL has no job in Europe...neither does she, but they are still together. He also comtemplated staying and going to grad school.
His degree was in Human Resources , which isn't very usefull to him over there. He is not versed in labor laws in his own country</p>
<p>I see. That's a somewhat sad story. I really hope they can work something out.</p>
<p>I've heard that an advanced degree from a US university with a specialty in science or technology gets you an H-1 visa and eventually a green card.
I guess I'm in the same boat as your intl. student; my interest is in the social science/business.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as an "advanced degree from a US university with a specialty in science or technology" that will automatically get you an H-1 visa. You have to have an employer who wants to hire you, and who is willing to go through all of the paperwork to apply for an H-1 visa for you, and then BOTH you and the employer will have to wait until your space in line for the limited number of H-1 visas that are issued becomes available. The actual number of H-1 visas changes from year to year and is subject to a lot of political lobbying etc., etc. Every year lots of good job candidates (and the employers who want to hire them) don't make the cut.</p>
<p>If you are hired on an H-1, you are tied to that employer essentially indefinitely. Many of these employers are abusive of the foreign hires because, well, they're rotten employers. US citizen and Permanent Resident employees know their rights and don't put up with that kind of treatment.</p>
<p>As to the suggestion about "buying" a green card, that really can't be done. What can be done is applying for an Investor's Visa. The Investor has to demonstrate that he/she has a certain amount of money to be used to establish a new business which will create a certain number of new jobs within a certain period of time. Again, the exact rules on this are subject to change, but unless you have about US $1,000,000 in spare change, you can forget even thinking about going the Investor route.</p>
<p>It is a lot harder to get to stay here than you'd like it to be. But that's how it is. The sooner you face reality, the sooner you can make good choices about your future.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is a lot harder to get to stay here than you'd like it to be. But that's how it is. The sooner you face reality, the sooner you can make good choices about your future.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I must confess I don't know how hard it is to stay in the US after graduation since I was never interested in doing that. However, none of my international classmates (all of them engineering or CS PhD's from a top 10 department) seem to have had trouble getting some kind of working visa (e.g H-1) to stay in the US after graduate school. </p>
<p>Maybe the people I know are a biased or non-representative sample, but, from anectodal evidence, it doesn't seem to be that hard if you hold an advanced degree.</p>
<p>"it doesn't seem to be that hard if you hold an advanced degree."</p>
<p>It is much easier with an advanced degree, especially in the scientific and technical fields. However, there are no absolute guarantees. Too many international students end up broken-hearted (and often up past their eyeballs in debt) every single year because they relied on anecdotal evidence. Please friends, make certain that you have solid alternate plans.</p>
<p>I agree with you happymom...we have had acquaintences that were brought here to work as white collar professionals from Scandinavia, as well as seasonal J1 Visa holders from Russia who try to wiggle around the laws and stay beyond their visa. Not a good gamble at all.
We also know a Mexican man that does a little side work for us on his off days from his regular job. He was a green card holder for years and just passed the citizen test. He has spent the last 20 yrs working in the USA seasonally and returning to Mexico only a few months a year to be with his wife and children. Everything he did was strictly by the book and I admire him for the sacrifices he has made , as well as his perserverance to reach his goals.</p>
<p>you could always marry a U.S. citizen... If you're in the U.S. planning to go to school long term, and get a job here anyway you might as well consider it :P</p>