Will this job offer kill her green card?

October 22, 2017 11:19 AM

Any immigration lawyers out there? My friend just got a killer job offer -- but it just might kill her chances of staying in the US.

Actually asking for a friend here. She's been on an H1B for nearly 6 years -- making her green card eligible -- and her company has committed to filing for her permanent residency next year. Problem is, she's miserable in her current role and it would take another 2 years to finalize.

She recently got a job offer that she's excited about. Just one problem: it would require her to switch to a G4 (diplomatic) visa. My questions:

1) Is she jeopardizing the progress she's made toward a green card by taking this job?
2) If she doesn't stay in the diplomatic job for long, would she be able to pick up where she left on her former H1B? Or would she need to apply again? Could she?

posted by lecorbeau to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Best answer: IANAIL, IANYFIL, I *have* spent a lot of time helping friends/family slog through USCIS paperwork.

This is a situation where your friend would really need personalised legal assistance, because diplomatic status makes routine immigration stuff get weirder and more complex -- and routine stuff is weird and complex as it is. Also, some of the answers may depend upon which country she's got citizenship with. But, from what I know (and I don't guarantee all of this is right or current):

1) Switching her visa would essentially reset her green card progress to zero, since she is going an employer-supported route instead of a family or humanitarian route. And I *think* you can only get permanent residency from a G4 visa when you're retiring from the position for which you held the G4 and wanting to stay in the US; they don't work quite the way other employment visas do and there's no green card path (except the retirement thing).

2) She would have to get her previous employer (if they hired her back) or a new employer to re-apply for another H1B. Her current H1B would become void when she got the G4. I think she *could* reapply, but she couldn't just switch status from G4 back to H1B. I do not know if she'd have to leave the country to do that, but she might. And there is a chance she would not be reapproved. If she was, the clock would restart from zero on green card status.

Also important to note: I think your friend would have to leave the US and wait for the G4 to come through, then return to the US on the G4 visa. This probably wouldn't take very long, but I believe it is a requirement in most cases (except for those on an F1 with OPT).
posted by halation at 12:02 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

Is the visa switch because the job requires it, or is it that the company/organization prefers it? That is, could H1B sponsorship be negotiated?
posted by rhizome at 12:10 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]

You only have a path from a G4 visa to permanent residency if a) you have had the G4 for fifteen years and you are retiring (and therefore not seeking employment in the US) and b) you have spent at least half of the last seven years (before applying for PR) in the US. As halation points out, switching to G4 sets her PR progress to zero and it will remain so till retirement under the terms mentioned above.
posted by TheRaven at 1:36 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]