Speaker 1: Which is easier to get, an employment-based green card or an H-1B visa? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States at our offices in St. Louis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. In today's video, we're going to talk about people who want to come to the United States and work in the United States. How does it work? Which system is easier? So both systems, both programs, the H-1B system and the employment-based green card system have their pluses and minuses. Let's talk about how they are different and then we can go from there. So an H-1B visa is a special kind of visa that's available to people with a specialty occupation and that's sort of a more advanced occupation. A lot of H-1B visas go to people like software developers, doctors, lawyers, accountants. This is people who have received a specific degree in a specific field. You can't get an H-1B visa, for example, say to run a restaurant or make pizzas or work as a truck driver. Those are not available for H-1Bs. They're only available for specialty occupations and the main test is whether people in that occupation have a specific degree and often it's an advanced degree. So H-1Bs are also subject to a lottery. There's a cap on the number of H-1B visas that are available every year, so there's a cap and whenever there's a cap that means there's going to be either a significant delay or a lottery and in this case it's a lottery. So most years there are way many more applications submitted on behalf of employers who want to sponsor a worker from overseas or foreign-born to work in the United States on that H-1B visa and so that means that USCIS has to conduct a lottery in order to figure out which cases get processed. So the last piece of the H-1B that's a little bit different from green cards is that the employer has to pay everything. They have to pay all the filing fees, the lawyer fees, all the fees associated with an H-1B. H-1Bs are also not in perpetuity. You can only get an H-1B in a three-year stint. You can renew it for another three years. The maximum amount of time that someone can stay in the United States on an H-1B in that status is up to six years total and so after that they would have to leave the United States. So an H-1B is a non-immigrant visa. It doesn't put you on a path to citizenship. It is not lawful permanent residency. So let's talk about employment-based green cards. So there are different kinds of employment-based green cards but for the most part in most cases this is going to involve an employer filing an application with the Department of Labor called a PERM application to see what the prevailing wage should be for the occupation, whether there are Americans who can do the job, and then the employer has to go through a good faith recruitment process. Now all of these hurdles are things that employers don't like about green cards and sponsoring people for employment based green cards. They don't like having the salary set by the government and that's true for H-1Bs and for green cards. They don't like the long tedious process of getting the PERM application approved from the Department of Labor which can take seven or eight months. They don't like the fact that they have to do a good faith recruitment which means they have to make sure that there aren't any American U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who can do this job and they have to be prepared to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Department of Labor that there aren't any Americans who can do this job. So there are a ton of regulations both with the H-1B but especially with the green card application. They have to publish it in the local newspaper of general circulation which means they're going to spend thousands of dollars on this ad when they already probably have someone in mind. So there are a lot of aspects of employment-based green cards that people don't like. Now green cards do have their pluses though too. So if someone receives an employment-based green card they're going to be able to stay in the United States for the rest of their lives. They can stay in that status as long as they don't violate the terms of that status or stay outside the United States for too long. They're also on a path to citizenship and the real kicker is that employment-based green cards are available for non-specialty occupations. So if you are talking about the EB-3 category, these are for workers and people who don't necessarily have those advanced degrees. EB-2s are for people with advanced degrees or people doing work in the national interests of the United States. But generally you're going to be able to get an employment-based green card for someone that you might not be able to get an H-1B visa available for. So those are some of the best things about the employment-based green card that it gives employers greater flexibility. It allows them to sponsor someone for the rest of their life if they maintain their status. With both an H-1B and a green card, another reason employers don't really like to get involved in these is not just the cost. It's not just the hassle. It's that many times once someone receives the H-1B or receives the employment-based green card, then they quit and go work somewhere else. And so then the employers love scratching their head, why did I go through all this hassle to give this person immigration status and now they've left me? So getting an employer to sponsor you for an H-1B or getting them to sponsor you for a green card is really, really tricky and it's really, really expensive and I think it's really hard to pull off from overseas. The vast majority of people who receive H-1Bs are people who have come to the United States on a student visa and have received what's called optional practical training and then made such a great impression on the employers that they're willing to sponsor them for an H-1B. Usually an employer will want to sponsor someone for an H-1B if it's a job that's available for them before sponsoring for the green card because the green card is so much longer and so much harder and so much more expensive. So these are the ways that H-1B visas and green cards based on employment can differ. If you are looking for an H-1B employer I have a great resource for you. If you go to myvisajobs.com you can see all the companies that have sponsored people in the last I think seven, eight years for an H-1B. That'll put you on track to find employers who are willing and ready to sponsor people for H-1Bs. The database doesn't work like that for employment-based green cards but even so it's going to show you what kind of companies are out there looking for foreign nationals to work for them and to get a visa. If you have found an employer, if you're an employer looking to hire someone and you have questions you want to hire us to assist with your H-1B visa or your employment-based green card feel free to give us a call 314-961-8200. You can also email us info at hackingimmigrationlaw.com. Don't forget we have our Immigration Answers Show where three or four times a week I answer people's questions about the immigration process for free and then we also have our great resources like our YouTube channel that you should subscribe to so that you get updates whenever we make videos like this one and our Immigrant Home Facebook group where you can join and talk to immigrants going through the immigration process, get your questions answered and go from there. Hope you found this helpful and we'll see you next time.