Son of a US citizen to be immigration

[kalkal 0]

If you did find an employer who is willing to petition for your GC, and if you are not form India and China, you could get your GC in as early as under 2 years to as late as 5-6 years depending on your petition category and how visa bulletin proceeds at that time. If you are from India/China, add lots of additional years of wait time.

Thank you arkan! An answer I was looking for. Employer GC petition must cost a lot. I will do some investigation on that.

[kalkal 0]

SO you have talked 3 paths to a green card. One is DV lottery, you can enter the drawing in the fall if you are in a qualifying country and hope that you win. This is a very unlikely path. Millions will enter , 50000 will get a chance some will not get a visa.

Employer based green card. You can look for an amployer that can help you on that path. Either try to get a job with a US company that could transfer after a period of time or find a company that will sponsor you directly,

The last path is being petitioned by your father. That path will take years at best. He will petition you, the petition will get approved and you will wait until a visa number is available. You have to look at the visa bulletin for an idea of how long that will take. IF you are single your father could start the petition now, as long as you still single until after your father has his oath of citizenship.

I knew the 1st and the 3rd, the second path is new to me. The petition of an employer to sponsor a green card for an employee must cost a lot for the company, right?

[kzielu 1,149]

I knew the 1st and the 3rd, the second path is new to me. The petition of an employer to sponsor a green card for an employee must cost a lot for the company, right?

Yes, and they typically don't sponsor somebody that they don't know, typically bring them on a work visa first. Having said that, you have to meet certain education requirements to be even eligible for most of the visas and higher category employment based green cards - do you meet them ?

[JFH 12,191]

The father-son route (approx 7 years) is the easiest insofar as it requires the least in terms of qualifications and has the highest chance of success. If he's your dad, he's your dad. He petitions and subject to you being generally admissible to the USA, you can immigrate but the wait is long.

DV lottery is a huge gamble. Millions apply every year for 50,000 visas. 50,000 sounds like a lot but in terms of the number of applicants the chances are slim.

Employment-based route can also be tricky, especially if it's a company that you have not previously worked for.

[Cathi 5,794]

You would need a highly specialized degree to be sponsored for a work visa, a bachelors degree in IT is not a highly specialized degree by any stretch of the imagination.The employer would have to prove that there are no US citizens or current green card holders that cannot fill said position. My husband has a bachelors in computer engineering(green card holder) and so does my son(US citizen) and I can tell you for a fact that although they are in high demand, it is not highly specialized. In fact when my husband arrived 4 years ago it took him 10 months to find a job in his field and this past November he was laid off and couldn't find another job in his field until 6 weeks ago-that;s 7 months of being laid off and looking for a job. We live in the Boston area where there are many, many high tech companies and jobs and twice he had a difficult time finding a job because the competition is fierce. An employer would be hard pressed trying to prove they need to hire someone from another country with only a bachelors degree in IT to essentially take an American job in a field where they have their pick of qualified candidates with IT degrees.

Edited August 9, 2016 by mimolicious

[Russ&Caro 1,549]

You would need a highly specialized degree to be sponsored for a work visa, a bachelors degree in IT is not a highly specialized degree by any stretch of the imagination.

Here are the requirements from the USCIS site:

• A bachelor’s degree or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum requirement for the particular position;
• The degree requirement is common for this position in the industry, or the job is so complex or unique that it can only be performed by someone with at least a bachelor's degree in a field related to the position;
• The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position; or
• The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a bachelor's or higher degree.

It's not the degree that needs to be specialized. It's the duties of the job. A bachelor's in IT can indeed qualify you for an H1b as long as the duties of the job are such that it is difficult or impossible for the employer to fill with a qualified US applicant.

Experience is key here, not the education, assuming you have the minimum education requirement, i.e. bachelor's degree.

There are IT companies that are getting very specialized in their product and service offerings. IBM comes to mind. If you gain experience abroad in these specialized technologies, they will indeed go through the hassle of an H1b to attract such talent and bring them into the US.

[Russ&Caro 1,549]

You would need a highly specialized degree to be sponsored for a work visa, a bachelors degree in IT is not a highly specialized degree by any stretch of the imagination.The employer would have to prove that there are no US citizens or current green card holders that cannot fill said position. My husband has a bachelors in computer engineering(green card holder) and so does my son(US citizen) and I can tell you for a fact that although they are in high demand, it is not highly specialized. In fact when my husband arrived 4 years ago it took him 10 months to find a job in his field and this past November he was laid off and couldn't find another job in his field until 6 weeks ago-that;s 7 months of being laid off and looking for a job. We live in the Boston area where there are many, many high tech companies and jobs and twice he had a difficult time finding a job because the competition is fierce. An employer would be hard pressed trying to prove they need to hire someone from another country with only a bachelors degree in IT to essentially take an American job in a field where they have their pick of qualified candidates with IT degrees.

I just want to clarify one thing relative to mimo's post. I do agree that IT jobs, even with the right degree, can be difficult for USC's and LPR's to land. It means that landing the same job with an H1b is usually even more difficult. However, there are some trends in some IT companies where H1b's are preferred. IT companies are abusing this visa. Some US politicians raise a ruckus, but are usually quieted down quickly. Senator Grassley's complaints a few years ago, against IBM come to mind. Note, IBM is not my employer but I've followed some of the news with this company. They're using their specialized product and service portfolio to claim that there aren't qualified applicants in the US. Meanwhile, they're training foreign workers more aggressively in these new technologies and then moving them here on H1b's.

Until there is either immigration reform in terms of laws or enforcement, employers will continue to stretch the rules to breaking.

[milimelo 4,568]

Why didn't your father petition you when he got a green card?

[kalkal 0]

Thank you guys for the posts. The onetonline.org lists my occupation as Job Zone 4 and SVP range 7.0 to < 8.0 which is 2-10 years of experience and I do have that (most probably as 85 % of the IT specialists in the US). The only high card I have is a broad range of skills. I have been working as : software developer in banking (Java), performance tester in banking, test automator in banking, software engineer in telco (.NET / C#). My field of expertise, although not very deep, is relatively broad and covers many many technologies. mimolicious, is the high demand not covered by the DV priorities? It is obvious that the more demand there is for the occupation, the more chances you have to get a job. Therefore an H1B as well. I know I cannot compare myself and your husband also the country I live in with the US and sorry if I sound like a braggart, but I have had 4 different jobs in leading Baltics / Europe companies in the past 3.5 years just because I did not like it and I have not been without a job even for a month. Can that simply change in the US? There's even more companies and more demand. I have been looking into the job ads recently, there is an enormous amount of them, it is by far 50x proportionally larger to the smaller market like ours. But on the other hand, I have handed over 30 applications and there was 4 negative answers and not a single positive yet.
Russ&Caro, thank you for extending mimolicious's message. IBM is indeed probably the No. 1 employer on the number of H1B's sponsored. Their vision is quite similar to some of the European companies while viewing from a different angle - attract cheap and determined as well as skilled workforce. It is actually a good time for immigrants, just have the skills and expertise and you have a chance.
milimelo, it was only a year ago, there were some talks, but he was busy with settling there. It also costs money and has a long waiting time, but we will probably do it soon. By the way, can you simultaneously try different paths, i.e. family based petition and work based visa, maybe even study visa at the same time?

[milimelo 4,568]

Apart from dv lottery, I don't know a single way of petitioning someone without it costing money.

Your reference to a year ago leads me to believe your father is not close to getting US citizenship. In either case, the sooner he files the faster you'll be in the waiting time for immigrant visa.

[kalkal 0]

Apart from dv lottery, I don't know a single way of petitioning someone without it costing money.

Your reference to a year ago leads me to believe your father is not close to getting US citizenship. In either case, the sooner he files the faster you'll be in the waiting time for immigrant visa.

Yes, he is roughly 3 years from becoming a US citizen. Thank God he did not have any conditions though.