Our way to the green cart
In the US, we came to the dashing 90s, but since then little has changed, and our experience can be valuable for many. A husband is a programmer and a mathematician who can write on everything, as far as I understand (and here I am not at all a programmer, so forgive me if something goes wrong), from assembler to C, C ++ and everywhere else.
We arrived on a work visa L1b, the husband was transferred to an American branch of an Eastern European company, where he had worked for a couple of years. Before coming to the USA, I was a linguist, a lexicographer, and was engaged in compiling dictionaries. With us was a 5 year old daughter, and daughter number two was born shortly after her arrival. This is important, because the question about the education of children rose soon enough, and as soon as the stress associated with the birth of the second child had passed, I began to pull at my husband - and what about the design of the Green Card? The question was principled - are we studying with older mathematics in Russian or American? Are we returning to Moscow or staying in the USA? These are two completely different educational tasks! In general, my husband had to break away from his favorite programs and go to the authorities to find out, because his attempts to dissuade me that they brought us here, and they would solve the problem, were not crowned with success.
It turned out that the authorities didn’t take much interest in the design of the Green Card - we have an immigration lawyer, they said, we pay him for all the employees, and they paid for your Green Card six months ago, all the questions went there. Said and done, call there. And I am not your lawyer, the lawyer answers, I am the company's lawyer, all the questions are there. Here I was really wondering what was going on, and the authorities had to convincingly ask a lawyer to still meet with us and tell us when he still plans to issue us a green card and what he managed to do in the past six months.
The meeting with the lawyer was very instructive. A respectable American in an expensive office in downtown Philadelphia told us for a long time what connections he had almost everywhere, and ended his speech with a conclusion, the meaning of which was approximately the following: I had already received the money, and therefore there was no reason to worry. In response to a specific question, when the documents will be submitted, he decisively said “tomorrow”, and suggested that we sign clean, not filled forms. We refused this tempting offer and asked: “why tomorrow? If nothing happened in half a year, how can we be sure that it is tomorrow? ”The American didn’t get into his pocket for the word:“ look, ”he said to us,“ you see the envelope? ”And he showed us the envelope with the pasted on him brand. “See, I already pasted the brand? So I will certainly send everything tomorrow! ”The argument was murderous, and certainly helped the lawyer to achieve what he wanted, we immediately left his office forever. When we went outside, I told my husband something like this: “I don’t understand what is happening, but I see that this lawyer clearly does not consider us to be people”. At the short family council, it was decided that I would go to work for the next lawyer, since, at the age of 18, in parallel with my studies at the university, I worked as a professional translator and also a secretary-referent. Why did we decide that? The fact is that by the manners of this lawyer it immediately became clear to me that the problem is not in him personally, but in our social status of foreign clients, and I categorically did not like this social status. This American considered himself to be immeasurably more significant person than we, both with university education, are quite good specialists in the business, authors of publications. He categorically could not even understand how the issue of obtaining a green card is connected with the education of our children, and why it is important for us. There was even a phrase that we might have to leave the United States and then get a visa again and return - in short, just so this gentleman was not going to let us out of his hands and wanted to cut off our employer in full, for the husband was a good specialist. and the employer was willing to pay. In short, he did not set any moral limits in his treatment of us, perhaps thanks to the already mentioned extensive connections. Still, with another such American and persuade him to still file our documents, despite the fact that the money has already been paid (and all lawyers pay, of course, they take it forward, and with a responsible attitude to their work, this is completely justified); , especially since it was time for me to think about who I want to be on this new continent for me (before that, I was at home with my little daughter).
')
I began to study the question of what lawyers assistants are doing, and how to become such an assistant, and it turned out that studying for an assistant attorney (paralegal) was two years, and a lawyer — three, if you have a higher education. I passed the law school exam, and at the same time I found a job in the office of a lawyer who was involved in, among other things, immigration matters. Since it was this direction that interested me most of all, he entrusted it to me, giving me a wonderful set of CDs (a long time ago the information was stored on disks, the Internet was in its infancy) with all the immigration laws, instructions and precedents. It turned out that this is very interesting, but it also turned out that the authorities did not inform us at all about the options for obtaining a green card, but there were several of them.
In particular, it turned out that it is not necessary to wait for receiving a green card through an employer. That is, of course, there is a standard option, the so-called “labor guarantor” (“labor certification”), when the employer advertises that there is a vacancy about him (which is not really a vacancy, but the work that my husband works on ). If there are no American workers who want to work at this place, or if they do not possess the specified skills or knowledge, the Department of Labor issues “labor certification”), and you can apply to the immigration office to get your own green card . It was this process that the American lawyer had to organize for us, but somehow everything did not find the time.
From the disks issued to me, I learned that everything in this process is not easy, and if it is naive for us, it seems that the main goal of the process is for us to receive a Green Card, the Department of Labor thinks differently - from their point of view, the most important thing is to employ American workers, and therefore the process is in every possible way aimed at finding out whether there are still people willing to replace my husband at his workplace. For example, if a company has recently been laid off, it is not allowed to apply for Labor certification. It is impossible to demand from potential applicants unique knowledge, it is possible to demand only what they could learn somewhere. The applicant should not be denied only because the workplace is occupied, he should not be aware that this is not a real vacancy, the employer is not obliged to hire him, but he cannot submit Labor certification, we must wait 6 months, then again advertising vacancies begin, all over again. Knowledge of Russian, gibberish and other languages ​​is also impossible to demand from a programmer, they will refuse, it is considered an illegal restrictive requirement. Salary below the plinth cannot be offered in principle - before filing for Labor certification, you need to submit the application to the same Department of Labor (called prevailing wage determination application), describe what kind of education is required for this job, and they will determine the salary; the more knowledge and experience is required, the more salary. In general, the process turned out to be completely not as trivial as we imagined it, and we decided that parallel to this process, in which, as it became clear, failure could occur simply because the stars did not stand up, we will consider alternative options , just to not waste time.
There were two alternatives - bypassing the whole process of Labor certification, you can apply for the Green card as a person with outstanding abilities (Extraordinary ability) or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States (National interest waiver). For employees of universities or research companies there is another option - submitting to the Green Card as an outstanding researcher, but our company was not engaged in scientific research. Therefore, we stopped at the first two options, all the more, it turned out that as a free bonus they have a very important feature - these applications can be submitted without the participation of the employer! That is, it is easy to compose, fill out and file without contacting the personnel department, with anyone at your place of work, and you can generally not inform them that such an application is submitted, and you can get the right to work on the basis of such an application, and to work not only from the main employer, but in parallel to take on additional projects and work for yourself, that if there were children and the prospects, it was not at all superfluous to pay for my law school education. In addition, at that time, the employer decided to change my husband a visa from L1b to H1b, and we were faced with the fact that I would lose my right to work (spouses of holders of L1b visas have the right to work, but spouses of holders of visas H1b) on the Green Card as a person with outstanding abilities or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States, the spouse also receives the right to work. Therefore, we were greatly interested in this option, but, of course, the question immediately arose - are we not very highly aiming? The husband, of course, was a competent specialist, but before the Nobel Prize, let's say, we are not even close now, but then it was still further ...
The disks issued to me contained a lot of precedents, that is, they described specific cases in which green cards were issued according to the above options, and after studying them, I was inspired. It turned out that with proper presentation of the material (and competently submitting the material we were well taught in the department of structural and applied linguistics), it is quite possible to prove that a person can be classified as a person with outstanding abilities or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States, even If the Nobel Prize is not shining for him yet! Hooray! Guided by precedents, we sat down to write the labor biography of the spouse, emphasizing precisely those moments that we paid attention to in positive decisions.
In order to qualify for a Green card in the “person with outstanding abilities” category, you need to satisfy three of the ten criteria outlined in the instructions. It turned out that we can demonstrate the availability of publications, the presence of links to publications, participation in the evaluation of others, an important contribution to the field of professional activity, as well as a leading role in an organization with a positive reputation, that is, even five criteria instead of three! These criteria can easily be found on the Internet, if you are interested in reading the others, but these five are most often met by those who are related to IT.
The criteria for submitting documents to the Green card as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States were much more vague, but the precedents were inspired - those who received good were, figuratively speaking, strong Horoshists and did not aim at the Nobel Prize at all. I must say that since then, the requirements for applicants for the Green Card were first tightened under this article, and then, at the end of the Obama administration, liberalized, so now the solid horoshist has every chance, especially if he has a business plan. We did not have a business plan, but we had a couple of patents, and we decided to rely on this.
On the basis of the studied precedents, as well as numerous samples that the employer provided me (later on the basis of continuous interaction with immigration authorities, as well as on the basis of my legal education, which turned out to be unexpectedly fundamental), my husband’s biography and reference letters were compiled, but This prevented me from sending our applications, some creative dissatisfaction. At the same time, I worked on the affairs of our numerous clients and studied in law school, and all the time I was improving something, working on it, until I finally understood - everything. There was nothing more to add, all possible precedents were taken into account, potential objections were reflected. The Labor Certification process, meanwhile, was not shaky or shaky, the Labor Department received all of our documents and subsided without showing signs of life. In my other cases, I knew that this was not related to us specifically, at that time they had another reorganization, and all the cases were delayed. As a result, we received correspondence on three applications at the same time — approvals from the Labor Certification, and from the application for the National Interest Waiver, and upon the application as a person with outstanding abilities. At that time, we were ready to part with the employer, through which they applied for Labor certification, so that the approval of self-submitted applications had to be very helpful. My husband went to work in a large company, where he would not have been taken on a work visa, because in principle they do not do work visas. So we found freedom!
I graduated from law school, passed the license exam, and since 2000 I have been working as an immigration lawyer, as it turned out that this is my favorite area of ​​American law. And in immigration law, my favorite area is the design of Green Cards for those who, as I often manage to prove not only the immigration service, but also themselves, it turns out, are individuals with outstanding abilities, or at least benefit this country and to all of us (that is, fits the category of National interest waiver). I am particularly pleased when I manage to help a person escape from immigration dependence on an employer, an addiction that I consider humiliating and unfair. Basically, it seems to me, I succeed in this not only due to the knowledge of the laws (this is very important, of course), but also because I respect and understand the importance and value of the work my clients do, unlike the arrogant the American who aroused my interest in American immigration law ...
And what's the matter with mathematics? - you ask. Very simple - in view of long uncertainty, mathematics was taught from two textbooks. In the end, I entered several Ivy League universities (Ivy League) at once, so everything turned out well.
We arrived on a work visa L1b, the husband was transferred to an American branch of an Eastern European company, where he had worked for a couple of years. Before coming to the USA, I was a linguist, a lexicographer, and was engaged in compiling dictionaries. With us was a 5 year old daughter, and daughter number two was born shortly after her arrival. This is important, because the question about the education of children rose soon enough, and as soon as the stress associated with the birth of the second child had passed, I began to pull at my husband - and what about the design of the Green Card? The question was principled - are we studying with older mathematics in Russian or American? Are we returning to Moscow or staying in the USA? These are two completely different educational tasks! In general, my husband had to break away from his favorite programs and go to the authorities to find out, because his attempts to dissuade me that they brought us here, and they would solve the problem, were not crowned with success.
It turned out that the authorities didn’t take much interest in the design of the Green Card - we have an immigration lawyer, they said, we pay him for all the employees, and they paid for your Green Card six months ago, all the questions went there. Said and done, call there. And I am not your lawyer, the lawyer answers, I am the company's lawyer, all the questions are there. Here I was really wondering what was going on, and the authorities had to convincingly ask a lawyer to still meet with us and tell us when he still plans to issue us a green card and what he managed to do in the past six months.
The meeting with the lawyer was very instructive. A respectable American in an expensive office in downtown Philadelphia told us for a long time what connections he had almost everywhere, and ended his speech with a conclusion, the meaning of which was approximately the following: I had already received the money, and therefore there was no reason to worry. In response to a specific question, when the documents will be submitted, he decisively said “tomorrow”, and suggested that we sign clean, not filled forms. We refused this tempting offer and asked: “why tomorrow? If nothing happened in half a year, how can we be sure that it is tomorrow? ”The American didn’t get into his pocket for the word:“ look, ”he said to us,“ you see the envelope? ”And he showed us the envelope with the pasted on him brand. “See, I already pasted the brand? So I will certainly send everything tomorrow! ”The argument was murderous, and certainly helped the lawyer to achieve what he wanted, we immediately left his office forever. When we went outside, I told my husband something like this: “I don’t understand what is happening, but I see that this lawyer clearly does not consider us to be people”. At the short family council, it was decided that I would go to work for the next lawyer, since, at the age of 18, in parallel with my studies at the university, I worked as a professional translator and also a secretary-referent. Why did we decide that? The fact is that by the manners of this lawyer it immediately became clear to me that the problem is not in him personally, but in our social status of foreign clients, and I categorically did not like this social status. This American considered himself to be immeasurably more significant person than we, both with university education, are quite good specialists in the business, authors of publications. He categorically could not even understand how the issue of obtaining a green card is connected with the education of our children, and why it is important for us. There was even a phrase that we might have to leave the United States and then get a visa again and return - in short, just so this gentleman was not going to let us out of his hands and wanted to cut off our employer in full, for the husband was a good specialist. and the employer was willing to pay. In short, he did not set any moral limits in his treatment of us, perhaps thanks to the already mentioned extensive connections. Still, with another such American and persuade him to still file our documents, despite the fact that the money has already been paid (and all lawyers pay, of course, they take it forward, and with a responsible attitude to their work, this is completely justified); , especially since it was time for me to think about who I want to be on this new continent for me (before that, I was at home with my little daughter).
')
I began to study the question of what lawyers assistants are doing, and how to become such an assistant, and it turned out that studying for an assistant attorney (paralegal) was two years, and a lawyer — three, if you have a higher education. I passed the law school exam, and at the same time I found a job in the office of a lawyer who was involved in, among other things, immigration matters. Since it was this direction that interested me most of all, he entrusted it to me, giving me a wonderful set of CDs (a long time ago the information was stored on disks, the Internet was in its infancy) with all the immigration laws, instructions and precedents. It turned out that this is very interesting, but it also turned out that the authorities did not inform us at all about the options for obtaining a green card, but there were several of them.
In particular, it turned out that it is not necessary to wait for receiving a green card through an employer. That is, of course, there is a standard option, the so-called “labor guarantor” (“labor certification”), when the employer advertises that there is a vacancy about him (which is not really a vacancy, but the work that my husband works on ). If there are no American workers who want to work at this place, or if they do not possess the specified skills or knowledge, the Department of Labor issues “labor certification”), and you can apply to the immigration office to get your own green card . It was this process that the American lawyer had to organize for us, but somehow everything did not find the time.
From the disks issued to me, I learned that everything in this process is not easy, and if it is naive for us, it seems that the main goal of the process is for us to receive a Green Card, the Department of Labor thinks differently - from their point of view, the most important thing is to employ American workers, and therefore the process is in every possible way aimed at finding out whether there are still people willing to replace my husband at his workplace. For example, if a company has recently been laid off, it is not allowed to apply for Labor certification. It is impossible to demand from potential applicants unique knowledge, it is possible to demand only what they could learn somewhere. The applicant should not be denied only because the workplace is occupied, he should not be aware that this is not a real vacancy, the employer is not obliged to hire him, but he cannot submit Labor certification, we must wait 6 months, then again advertising vacancies begin, all over again. Knowledge of Russian, gibberish and other languages ​​is also impossible to demand from a programmer, they will refuse, it is considered an illegal restrictive requirement. Salary below the plinth cannot be offered in principle - before filing for Labor certification, you need to submit the application to the same Department of Labor (called prevailing wage determination application), describe what kind of education is required for this job, and they will determine the salary; the more knowledge and experience is required, the more salary. In general, the process turned out to be completely not as trivial as we imagined it, and we decided that parallel to this process, in which, as it became clear, failure could occur simply because the stars did not stand up, we will consider alternative options , just to not waste time.
There were two alternatives - bypassing the whole process of Labor certification, you can apply for the Green card as a person with outstanding abilities (Extraordinary ability) or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States (National interest waiver). For employees of universities or research companies there is another option - submitting to the Green Card as an outstanding researcher, but our company was not engaged in scientific research. Therefore, we stopped at the first two options, all the more, it turned out that as a free bonus they have a very important feature - these applications can be submitted without the participation of the employer! That is, it is easy to compose, fill out and file without contacting the personnel department, with anyone at your place of work, and you can generally not inform them that such an application is submitted, and you can get the right to work on the basis of such an application, and to work not only from the main employer, but in parallel to take on additional projects and work for yourself, that if there were children and the prospects, it was not at all superfluous to pay for my law school education. In addition, at that time, the employer decided to change my husband a visa from L1b to H1b, and we were faced with the fact that I would lose my right to work (spouses of holders of L1b visas have the right to work, but spouses of holders of visas H1b) on the Green Card as a person with outstanding abilities or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States, the spouse also receives the right to work. Therefore, we were greatly interested in this option, but, of course, the question immediately arose - are we not very highly aiming? The husband, of course, was a competent specialist, but before the Nobel Prize, let's say, we are not even close now, but then it was still further ...
The disks issued to me contained a lot of precedents, that is, they described specific cases in which green cards were issued according to the above options, and after studying them, I was inspired. It turned out that with proper presentation of the material (and competently submitting the material we were well taught in the department of structural and applied linguistics), it is quite possible to prove that a person can be classified as a person with outstanding abilities or as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States, even If the Nobel Prize is not shining for him yet! Hooray! Guided by precedents, we sat down to write the labor biography of the spouse, emphasizing precisely those moments that we paid attention to in positive decisions.
In order to qualify for a Green card in the “person with outstanding abilities” category, you need to satisfy three of the ten criteria outlined in the instructions. It turned out that we can demonstrate the availability of publications, the presence of links to publications, participation in the evaluation of others, an important contribution to the field of professional activity, as well as a leading role in an organization with a positive reputation, that is, even five criteria instead of three! These criteria can easily be found on the Internet, if you are interested in reading the others, but these five are most often met by those who are related to IT.
The criteria for submitting documents to the Green card as a person whose work will be in the national interest of the United States were much more vague, but the precedents were inspired - those who received good were, figuratively speaking, strong Horoshists and did not aim at the Nobel Prize at all. I must say that since then, the requirements for applicants for the Green Card were first tightened under this article, and then, at the end of the Obama administration, liberalized, so now the solid horoshist has every chance, especially if he has a business plan. We did not have a business plan, but we had a couple of patents, and we decided to rely on this.
On the basis of the studied precedents, as well as numerous samples that the employer provided me (later on the basis of continuous interaction with immigration authorities, as well as on the basis of my legal education, which turned out to be unexpectedly fundamental), my husband’s biography and reference letters were compiled, but This prevented me from sending our applications, some creative dissatisfaction. At the same time, I worked on the affairs of our numerous clients and studied in law school, and all the time I was improving something, working on it, until I finally understood - everything. There was nothing more to add, all possible precedents were taken into account, potential objections were reflected. The Labor Certification process, meanwhile, was not shaky or shaky, the Labor Department received all of our documents and subsided without showing signs of life. In my other cases, I knew that this was not related to us specifically, at that time they had another reorganization, and all the cases were delayed. As a result, we received correspondence on three applications at the same time — approvals from the Labor Certification, and from the application for the National Interest Waiver, and upon the application as a person with outstanding abilities. At that time, we were ready to part with the employer, through which they applied for Labor certification, so that the approval of self-submitted applications had to be very helpful. My husband went to work in a large company, where he would not have been taken on a work visa, because in principle they do not do work visas. So we found freedom!
I graduated from law school, passed the license exam, and since 2000 I have been working as an immigration lawyer, as it turned out that this is my favorite area of ​​American law. And in immigration law, my favorite area is the design of Green Cards for those who, as I often manage to prove not only the immigration service, but also themselves, it turns out, are individuals with outstanding abilities, or at least benefit this country and to all of us (that is, fits the category of National interest waiver). I am particularly pleased when I manage to help a person escape from immigration dependence on an employer, an addiction that I consider humiliating and unfair. Basically, it seems to me, I succeed in this not only due to the knowledge of the laws (this is very important, of course), but also because I respect and understand the importance and value of the work my clients do, unlike the arrogant the American who aroused my interest in American immigration law ...
And what's the matter with mathematics? - you ask. Very simple - in view of long uncertainty, mathematics was taught from two textbooks. In the end, I entered several Ivy League universities (Ivy League) at once, so everything turned out well.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/337318/
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