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Employment-Based Immigration

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There are 5 preference categories for employment-based immigration visas. There are generally about 140,000 employment based visas available annually. Each of the first three categories gets about 40,000 visas every year.

The first category is Priority Workers (EB-1). There are about 40,000 visas available for this category. It has three sub-categories: 1. Workers with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, and athletics. 2. Outstanding professors and researchers. 3. Company executive and managers.  See EB-1

The second category is EB-2, and it has two sub-categories: 1. Professionals holding an advanced degree. 2. Persons with exceptional ability in the arts, sciences, or business. Qualified applicants can apply for a national interest waiver (NIW) by submitting evidence along with I-140. National Interest Waiver is a very popular and important path for qualified applicants to obtain the green card.  See EB-2

The third employment-based preference is EB-3. It covers skilled workers, professionals holding baccalaureate degrees and other workers. It also gets the unused visas from the first two preference categories. Only 10,000 can be given to unskilled workers. There are three subcategories: 1. Skilled workers: workers capable of performing a job requiring at least two years’ training or experience; 2. Professionals with a baccalaureate degree: members of a profession with at least a university bachelor’s degree; 3. Other workers: those persons capable of filling positions with less than two year training or experience.

The fourth employment-based preference is EB-4. This is for special immigrants. Except for U.S. government’s overseas employees, everyone must be the beneficiary of an approved I-360. Following are the types of people that will qualify for this category: religious workers, certain overseas U.S. government workers, retired employees of international organizations, certain dependents of international organization employees, and certain members of the U.S. armed forces.

The fifth employment-based preference is EB-5. All applicants must file a I-526, Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur. An alien must invest $500,000 or $1 million in a commercial enterprise located in the U.S. and be able to create at least 10 new full-time jobs. See EB-5
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