Chapter 2
All Ways to Get a Green Card

The official name for the green card is the Alien Registration Receipt Card. It has been called a green card because, when it was first introduced in the 1940s, the color of the plastic identification card with the alien’s photo, registration number, date of birth, and date and port of entry was green.

Over the years, the card's color has been, at various times, blue, white, and pink, but now it is green again.

There are several ways a person can obtain a green card—that is, become a lawful permanent resident. The most popular ones are through family and work. The other ways include proving that you’re fleeing from persecution, making large investments, or other reasons.

This book covers the green card categories most readily available to ordinary people, with an emphasis on family categories. However, this chapter will tell you a little about the other major green card categories, and where to go next if you’re interested in them.

Family-Based Relationships

Recognizing that the family is important in the life of the nation, the U.S. Congress has created ways for family members to be reunited with their relatives who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Related or Engaged to a U.S. Citizen

If you are the spouse, child, brother, sister, or parent of, or are engaged to be married to, a U.S. citizen, you can become a lawful permanent resident. The person to whom you’re related or engaged must start the process by filing a petition with USCIS or the U.S. embassy in your country of residence.

If you are the widow or widower of a U.S. citizen and it was a good-faith marriage (not a sham to get a green card), you can petition for a green card for yourself, provided you file the application (Form I-360) within two years of the death of your spouse, you weren't legally separated at the time of death, and you haven't remarried.

Related to a Lawful Permanent Resident

If you are the spouse or unmarried child of a lawful permanent resident, you can obtain a green card—some day. First, the relative who has the green card must file a petition with USCIS. But you’ll have to wait several years, until you reach the top of a waiting list, to apply for the actual green card.

Other Relatives

If you are the aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, grandmother, or grandfather of a U.S. citizen, or if you are the brother, sister, parent, or fiancé of someone who holds a green card, you do not qualify for a green card based on a “family relationship.” Understandably, the U.S. Congress had to draw the line on what constitutes a family for the purpose of immigration.

If you believe you qualify for a family-based green card, or are helping someone who does, here’s where to go next: Readers who are engaged to U.S. citizens, see Chapter 6. Readers who are married to U.S. citizens or permanent residents, see Chapter 7. Readers who are parents of U.S. citizens, see Chapter 8. Readers who are children of U.S. citizens or permanent residents, see Chapter 9. If you’re an Amerasian child born in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or Thailand, see Chapter 12. For how to bring in an orphan child, see Chapter 10. Readers who are brothers or sisters of U.S. citizens, see Chapter 13.

Employment-Based Relationships

If you do not have a close family member who is a U.S. citizen or who holds a green card, you may be able to obtain a green card through a job offer from an employer in the United States—as either a priority or a non-priority worker.

Priority Workers

Priority workers are people with extraordinary ­ability (such as an internationally known artist), outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational executives and managers. Another name for this category is “employment first preference.”

Such highly skilled people have a relatively easy immigration process. Some do not even need a job offer, and none are required to go through the difficult labor certification process that other immigrating workers must pass, in which the Department of Labor determines that there are no U.S. workers available and willing to do the same job.

Other Workers

Applicants who have been offered jobs that require graduate degrees in the arts or sciences or a profes­sion (such as a law degree), or a master’s degree in business administration (MBA), or a bachelor’s degree plus five years of specialized ­experience are eligible for immigrant visas. This category is known as “employment second preference.”

These applicants will first need certification from the Department of Labor saying that no qualified U.S. worker is available, willing, and able to do the job.

Also, ordinary professionals (without graduate degrees) and skilled or unskilled workers (factory workers, plumbers, domestic workers, carpenters, and the like) may apply for labor certification and a green card on the basis of a job offer. This category is known as “employment third preference.”

If you believe you qualify for any of these ­employment-based green cards, consult an experienced immigration attorney. As explained earlier, this book doesn’t cover employment-based immigration. The employer who has offered you a job (and you must have a job offer in almost all categories described above) may have an attorney it works with regularly. The employer may even be willing to pay the attorney’s fees. If you’ll be selecting your own attorney, see Chapter 25 for tips.

Be Ready to Wait

It may take you a long time to become a permanent resident under some of the immigrant visa categories described in this chapter. Once you file the first petition form to set the process in motion, however, it may become very difficult for you to come to the United States as a tourist or other nonimmigrant, or to have your status as a nonimmigrant extended. That’s because, in order to obtain most non­immigrant visas, you have to prove that you plan to return to your home country after your stay on the visa—and it’s hard to prove permanent ties to your home country if you’re simultaneously planning to leave it behind and get a U.S. green card.

The only groups who need not be concerned with this warning are diplomats (A visas), employees of international organizations (G visas), intracompany transferees (L-1 or L-2 visas), and workers in specialty occupations that require a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent (H-1B visas).

Special Immigrants

Certain categories of people may obtain a green card by special laws—in addition to certain provisions of the Immigration Act of 1990—intended to benefit limited groups. These include, for example:

priests, nuns, pastors, ministers, rabbis, imams, and other workers of recognized religious denominations

former employees of the U.S. government, commended by the U.S. Secretary of State for having ­performed outstanding service to the government for at least 15 years

medical doctors who have been licensed in the United States and have worked and lived in the United States since January 1978

former employees of the Panama Canal Zone

retired officers or employees of certain international organizations who have lived in the United States for a certain time, plus their spouses and unmarried children

foreign workers who have been employees of the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong for at least three years

foreign children who have been declared dependent in juvenile courts in the United States, and

international broadcasting employees.

All these people fall into a green card category known as “employment-based fourth preference.”

If you believe you fit one of these categories, consult an experienced immigration attorney. Special immigrants are not covered in this book. Your employer may be willing to hire an attorney for you.

Entrepreneur Immigrants

An alien entrepreneur from any country who invests at least one million dollars in a business (or $500,000 if the business is in an economically depressed area) and who employs at least ten U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents is ­eligible for a green card. Each year, 10,000 immigrant visas are set aside for this millionaire immigrant category, which is designed to create employment. This category is also known as “employment-based fifth preference.”

Are you financially able to qualify for a green card based on investment? If so, it’s well worth hiring an experienced immigration attorney to help.

Asylum and Refugee Status

People who can prove that they fled their country for fear of persecution owing to their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social or political group, or political opinion may apply for legal status as refugees (if they’re outside the U.S.) and asylees (if they’re already inside the U.S.).

A person who gains U.S. government approval as a refugee or asylee can apply for permanent residence status later (more specifically, one year after being admitted to the United States as a refugee or one year after petition for asylee status is granted).

For more information on applying for refugee or asylee status, see Chapter 14.

Diversity Visa Lottery

The Immigration Act of 1990 created a green card category to benefit people from countries that in recent years have sent the fewest numbers of immigrants to the United States. You can enter the lottery if you are a native of one of those countries and meet certain educational and other requirements. Because the winners are selected through a random drawing, the program is popularly known as the green card lottery. Its official name is the Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery.

There are 50,000 winners selected each year. They are chosen by dividing the world into regions and allocating no more than 7% of the total green cards to each region.

However, even if you win the lottery, you still have to make it through the green card application process—and many people fail, because they’re inadmissible or the government can’t process their application by the deadlines set by law.

For more information on applying for the visa lottery, and what to do if you win, see Chapter 11.

Amnesties

Once in a while, Congress gives blanket green card eligibility to people who have been living in the United States illegally. Recent amnesties have covered:

aliens who applied for amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986—having been in the United States out of status since January 1, 1982. Their spouses and unmarried children under 21 years of age were also ­eligible to become permanent residents.

Nicaraguans, Cubans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and certain Eastern Europeans, under the NACARA law.

While the deadlines for both these amnesties have passed, many people’s cases are still being decided by USCIS and the courts.

Interested in learning more about a past or upcoming amnesty? Consult an experienced immigration attorney or a ­local nonprofit. Do not go to a USCIS office unless you want to risk deportation.