Categories:
- EB-1: Priority workers, including persons with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and multinational managers and executives.
First Preference
- Persons with extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. Applicants in this category must have extensive documentation showing sustained national or international acclaim and recognition in their fields of expertise. Such applicants do not have to have specific job offers, so long as they are entering the U.S. to continue work in the fields in which they have extraordinary ability. Such applicants can file their own Immigrant Petitions for Alien Worker, Form I-140, with the USCIS.
- Outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years' experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally. Applicants in this category must be coming to the U.S. to pursue tenure, tenure track teaching, or a comparable research position at a university or other institution of higher education. The prospective employer must provide a job offer and file an Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, with the USCIS.
- Multinational managers or executives who have been employed for at least one of the three preceding years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer. The applicant's employment outside of the U.S. must have been in a managerial or executive capacity, and the applicant must be coming to work in a managerial or executive capacity. The prospective employer must provide a job offer and file an Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, with the USCIS.
Second Preference
- EB-2: Professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability, including National Interest Waiver (NIW) applicants
The Second Preference category applicant will generally require a labor certification approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. A job offer is required, and the U.S. employer must file an immigrant visa petition on behalf of the applicant. Applicants may apply for a national interest waiver (NIW), from the job offer and labor certification if the exemption would be in the national interest. In this case, the applicant may self-petition by filing the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, Form I-140, along with evidence of the national interest. Professionals holding advanced degrees and persons of exceptional ability receive 28.6 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas, plus any unused visas from the Employment First Preference category.
There are two subgroups within this category:
- 1. Professionals holding an advanced degree (beyond a baccalaureate degree), or a baccalaureate degree and at least five years progressive experience in the profession.
- 2. Persons with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. Exceptional ability means having a degree of expertise significantly above that ordinarily encountered in the sciences, arts, or business.
Third Preference
- EB-3: Skilled workers, professionals with bachelor's degrees, and other workers.
A third preference applicant must have an approved immigrant visa petition, filed by the prospective employer. All such workers generally require labor certification approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. Skilled workers, professionals, and unskilled workers (other workers) receive 28.6 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas, plus any unused visas from the employment first preference and second reference categories.
There are three subgroups within this category:
- 1. Skilled workers are persons whose jobs require a minimum of 2 years of training or work experience that is not temporary or seasonal.
- 2. Professionals are members of the professions whose jobs require at least a baccalaureate degree from a U.S. university or college or its foreign equivalent degree.
- 3. Unskilled workers (other workers) are persons capable of filling positions that require less than two years training or experience that are not temporary or seasonal.
Fourth Preference
- EB-4: Special immigrants, including religious workers and certain other special categories.
A fourth preference applicant must be the beneficiary of an approved petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant except certain employees or former employees of the U.S. Government abroad. Labor certification is not required for any of the certain special immigrant subgroups. Special immigrants receive 7.1 percent of the yearly worldwide limit of employment-based immigrant visas. The sub-groups within this category include broadcasters in the U.S., ministers of religion, foreign medical graduates, certain international organizations employees, special immigrant juvenile, certain religious workers, etc.