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Green Card Knowledge Base /Employment-based immigration

EMPLOYMENT-BASED

Employment-based immigration

From EB-1 through EB-5, understand labor certification, Form I-140, priority dates and visa availability, and the relationship between principal applicant and derivative family member codes.

  • EB-1 Through EB-5
  • PERM and I-140
  • Visa Availability and Statistics
  • Adjustment of Status / Consular Processing
  • Law and History
  • Entrepreneurship and H-4

Recommended Reading Order

Read in numerical order;16articles will give you a complete framework.

  1. 01EB-1 to EB-5: an overview of the five employment-based preference categoriesWho each of the five employment categories is for, whether an employer is required, and why EB-4 and EB-5 are often misunderstood.EB-1EB-2EB-3EB-4
  2. 02Priority dates and the visa bulletin: how to actually read Chart A and Chart BWhy numerically limited categories have queues, where to find the priority date, and the difference between Final Action Dates and Dates for Filing.Priority DateVisa AvailabilityVisa BulletinFamily
  3. 03PERM, I-140, and the green card: three different thingsLabor certification is issued by the Department of Labor, Form I-140 is approved by USCIS, and neither one is permanent resident status yet.PERMLabor CertificationI-140I-485
  4. 04Adjustment of status (AOS) and consular processing (CP)The same category can follow two different procedures depending on whether the person is inside or outside the United States; the last digit of a code often reflects this.AOSI-485Consular ProcessingFamily
  5. 05NIW and EB-2: The National Interest Waiver Is Not Limited to Ph.D. HoldersThe two basic eligibility routes for EB-2, the three NIW criteria, and why “you must have a Ph.D.” is a misconception.NIWEB-2Advanced DegreeExceptional Ability
  6. 06How to Read Visa Allocations and Statistics: I-140 Approvals Do Not Equal the Number of Green Card RecipientsAnnual caps, statistics on actual grants of status, and petition approval counts are three different sets of numbers; this website makes no promises about visa wait times.StatisticsVisa NumbersI-140Codes
  7. 07Principal Applicants, Derivative Family Members, and Category CodesWhy one category may correspond to multiple codes, and how to read code groupings such as RR6/RR7/RR8.Principal applicantDerivative Family MembersCodesEB-5
  8. 08Employment-Based Immigration Glossary: EB, Charts A/B, PD, ROW, SO, and Upgrading/DowngradingAn explanation of the community’s most common abbreviations, one by one, with corrections to outdated or inaccurate claims.TerminologyGetting StartedPDROW
  9. 09The Supply-and-Demand Model of Visa Backlogs: Why Reliable Predictions Are Not PossibleUnderstanding visa backlogs as a “queue”: revisiting the assumptions behind the community formulas from 2020 and why they cannot serve as predictions today.Visa AvailabilityForecastsSupply and DemandHistorical Discussions
  10. 10Unused Numbers and Per-Country Limits: What 8 U.S.C. 1151–1153 ProvideStatutory shares, transfers between categories, the 7% per-country limit, quarterly unused-number rules, and the limitations of community allocation examples.SpilloverPer-Country LimitsLawVisa Numbers
  11. 11How to Read USCIS I-140 Data and Inventory TablesApproval counts, inventory awaiting visa availability, principal beneficiaries and family members, duplicate petitions—and why a fixed multiplier cannot be used to convert petition counts into numbers of people.I-140StatisticsInventoryFamily Members
  12. 12A Brief Legal History of Employment-Based Immigration: INA 1952, IMMACT 90, AC21, and the 20,000 Slots Established in 2004Check each year and attribution in the community’s “history of immigration legislation,” correcting errors such as attributing per-country limits to AC21.LawHistoryAC21IMMACT 90
  13. 13S.386 and H.R.1044: Proposals to “Eliminate Per-Country Caps” in the 116th CongressThe official legislative records of the two proposals, and why the community’s 2020 projections under “passage” and “non-passage” scenarios cannot be treated as current projections.S386H.R.1044LegislationHistorical Discussions
  14. 14Green Card Pathways for Entrepreneurs: H-1B Controlling-Interest Rules, L-1/EB-1C, NIW, and EB-5H-1B and L-1 are not the only two routes; it is also important to distinguish nonimmigrant work statuses from green card categories.EntrepreneurshipH-1BL-1EB-1C
  15. 15H-4 Employment Authorization: Current Eligibility and Rumors That It “Will Be Eliminated”Which H-4 spouses may apply for employment authorization, and how to evaluate rumors of its elimination.H-4EADFamily MembersRumors
  16. 16Priority Date Retention and EB-2/EB-3 Upgrades and DowngradesWhether an earlier priority date can be retained when filing a new I-140, which date to use when there are multiple petitions, and which grounds for revocation result in loss of the priority date.Priority DateUpgrading and DowngradingI-140PD
Common Questions Covered in This Section ·17questions

These questions come from employment-based immigration Q&As compiled by a reader community. This site has rewritten them based on official materials and corrected outdated statements.

Historical Discussion · October 2020 Community Q&A (Predictions and Hypotheticals, Not Current Visa Availability)