Confusing J1

[lily&jo]

Finished my residemcy on a J1 waiver this year. Applied for a waver and its been almost a month since it got approved but I havent recieved the hard copy. I also applied for H1 after a month filing of the waiver.

Should I be concern that I havent recieved the hard copy of my waiver on the mail?

Do I need the hard copy of the waiver approval in processing my H1? I thought maybe the USCIS already have that data base and they can easily pull it out of ther file.

Can I apply for premium processing then without the hard copy the approval waiver?

What is the best route to get permanent residency/green card?

How are the J1 waivers affected by the retrogression issue?

 

[hadron]

> Do I need the hard copy of the waiver approval in processing
> my H1? I thought maybe the USCIS already have that data base
> and they can easily pull it out of ther file.

I believe you don't. By some big miracle, they can actually pull that information up themselves. (I assume USCIS has approved the waiver, not just DOS recommended it)

> What is the best route to get permanent residency/green card?

Marry a US citizen (sorry I had to put that in here. but with employment based immigration being so tedious and unpredictable, getting divorced and picking someone up for a GC becomes a tempting alternative.)

But seriously, you have two main options:
- get a recommendation letter from the state department of health that your work is in the public interest and apply for a 'national interest waiver' I140 (GC petitition). You will also need a 5 year employment contract or a business plan for your own practice.
- have your employer advertise your postion according to the PERM requirements and have them file a labor certification.

Considering the recent developments of backlogs for citizens of india and the phillipines, you might want to get an early state on filing this kind of stuff. Even if you are not from these countries, the retrogression might extend to other countries in the future. You want to have your case to be as old as possible.

> How are the J1 waivers affected by the retrogression issue?

The waiver itself is not affected. It is done on a quota exempt H1b. The prospects for a speedy green-card for the time after the 3 years have considerably diminished. With a NIW, you would have to stay for the 5 years in your HPSA position and then you could move on to a different job. The 'shortcut' of getting your GC through the labor cert route 3 years and 1 day after starting your waiver might not be available in the future.

 

[arizonian]

The prospects for a speedy green-card for the time after the 3 years have considerably diminished. With a NIW, you would have to stay for the 5 years in your HPSA position and then you could move on to a different job. The 'shortcut' of getting your GC through the labor cert route 3 years and 1 day after starting your waiver might not be available in the future.

I disagree. You are just scaring the poor guy. He is just starting his waiver. Under the old system, if you had your labor certification even by the end of the second year, you were quite in time for CP or AOS by the end of three years.

Unless your crystal ball is telling you this, we have no idea what is going to happen two years from now. Available data suggests that there is a fairly good chance that the regression will be gone by then.

Look at the visa bulletin for the last 5-7 years. These things (regression) happen in cycles and never last more than a year.

Right now, we are seeing the tail end of the application process for people who came in as engineers during the dot com era when H1 quotas were quite generous, and hence the bad backlog.

With the H1 numbers declining, and after the current backlog is cleared, things are likely to improve.

 

[hadron]

> Unless your crystal ball is telling you this, we have no idea what is
> going to happen two years from now. Available data suggests
> that there is a fairly good chance that the regression will be gone by then.

And from the same data you can make a prediction that ALL EB categories will retrogress and that it is here to stay.

Until recently, getting a LC was the big bottleneck to immigration. In the big population centers (Cali and NY) it took years to get an LC approved. As a result, companies would only do LCs if they could get the employee on a H1b in the interim (actually, the LC was used as a cheap retention tool). If PERM keeps up and the short I140 processing times are here to stay, it will be possible for companies to recruit someone overseas and get him a GC in 6 months (and never deal with a H1b).

I stand by my advice: Given the current situation, it is important to get an early start on your GC. The moment you have found waiver employment, you have to start working on getting a LC and/or NIW started. If retrogression disappears like a bad dream, no harm done. If it is here to stay (or starts to extend into the worldwide EB-2 category), you want to have a PD as old as possible.

There is no crystal ball. You have to deal with the situation as it presents itself today and hope for the best.

 

[arizonian]

Given the current situation, it is important to get an early start on your GC. The moment you have found waiver employment, you have to start working on getting a LC and/or NIW started. If retrogression disappears like a bad dream, no harm done. If it is here to stay (or starts to extend into the worldwide EB-2 category), you want to have a PD as old as possible.
.

That is good advise for anyone, retrogression or not. I started mine even before I joined my J1 waiver job.