Syracuse, NY Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

To obtain a green card through your work, you need to be sponsored by a U.S. employer. An immigrant petition can be filed immediately. However, the processing of it takes time that might exceed the duration of your OPT. Usually, employer loses interest in a foreign worker if the worker must leave the U.S. and wait for an immigrant visa for a couple of years. So you need to maintain legal status and permission to work while you wait for the petition's approval. First, if you are in one of the STEM fields, you can extend your OPT by 24 months. The STEM specialties are: o Computer Science Applications o Biological and Biomedical Sciences o Actuarial Science o Mathematics and Statistics o Engineering o Military Technologies o Engineering Technologies o Physical Sciences o Science Technologies o Medical Scientist If your degree is in one of the STEM specialties, you can file for an extension any time before your current OPT expires. Second, your employer can file an application for H-1B visa. If granted, H-1B will give you up to 10 years in the U.S. while your immigrant petition is being processed. The problem with it is that you can apply for an H-1B visa only once a year, in April, and cannot be sure that it will be granted because there is a limited number of such visas, and they are allotted to eligible applicants by a lottery. You might want to talk to an immigration attorney as soon as possible. Success of your case can turn on, literally, a few days: you need to have a result before your OPT work permit expires; and the time it will take depends on your specialty and the category in which your petition will be filed, and on your country of citizenship (employment-based immigrant visas are allocated on quotas, evenly to all countries regardless of the number of applicants from each country; so the waiting time for citizens of China, India, Mexico, Philippines, and Central American countries is different from the other applicants in the same categories). The sooner you start the process, the better your chances of completing it before you have to leave the U.S.

No. Your husband cannot adjust status, simply because he does not have a status, and never had one. He could adjust status as your husband if he entered on a visa and later overstayed. But, as it is, if he files an adjustment of status application, it will be denied; and the US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) will arrest him and start removal proceedings against him. This might be the way to go - if you or your children have significant health or psychological problems. If that is the case, your husband might be able to ask the Immigration Court for cancellation of removal (which means, basically, that the Immigration Court would give him a green card to avoid inflicting "an exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" on you or on your child). Even with U.S. citizen wife or child who has severe health problems, there is no guarantee of success on this kind of application, and the risk of deportation is high. If you or your children have somewhat lesser health or psychological problems that would not be enough for cancellation of removal, they might provide grounds for a waiver of inadmissibility - for a permission to your husband to return to the U.S. after deportation, with a green card. To be sure if either one of these ways to legalize your husband is right for your family, you have to discuss all the details of the case with an experienced immigration attorney. Avoid *notario*s, "immigration consultants", and attorneys who do immigration cases between real estate closings: this is a serious matter that has to be handled by a specialist. Another possibility is to apply for a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), often called DREAM Act. It is not, in fact, the DREAM Act, which would give people like your husband green cards and a path to U.S. citizenship - and which our Congress cannot pass for over a decade now. DACA is an executive enactment of President Obama which gives permission to work to people who were brought into the U.S. as children. If your husband can prove that he was in the U.S. before the age of 16, graduated from a high school, and does not have a criminal record, he can apply for DACA and receive an employment authorization card. With employment authorization card, he can get a real Social Security number and a driver's license. It will not make him a permanent resident, but it will make life a bit easier. Oh, and if he did not finish high school, he can take some classes and sit for the GED - that would qualify him for DACA, too. Again, if you think your husband can qualify for DACA, talk to an immigration attorney to make sure you are right about it. Quite a few non-profit organizations provide help with DACA applications for free or for a modest fee; look up on-line listings in your area.