Green Card Process

[Vijaya Kumar Midde]

Hi,

My name is Vijaya Kumar Midde. I was an employee of General Motors in Michigan, Detroit. While I was employed in GM, my Greencard process was initiated and my PERM was in the process. But GM laid of people and I was one of them. My PERM process stopped. I am in 6th year of my H1-B visa ( expires on Aug 31, 2019) . But if I can recapture my days I can get visa till JAn 2020. I have given interview to couple of companies and likelihood of getting hired is more if not for my visa status.

My question would be,  but what are my chances of applying my greencard process before I go out of my VISA period. I mean hiring a lawyer to file for my greencard outside the company while employed. OR please suggest what I can do to stay in the country and convince companies to file for my greencard.

[Provence]

An H1b visa allows you to work in a temporary capacity for up to 6 years. Once that temporary job ends, there is no stipulation that you have to have a green card. If you can't find any suitable job, you cannot stay in the US and would have no choice but to leave the US and work in your home country. Presumably there are employment opportunities in your home country after a H1b stint in the US. 

[care_candidate]

To apply for Green card via employment, you have to have employment and have approved PERM to go beyond 6 years of H1b. Your immediate first task is to find employer who can file H1b. Now as you are laid off, your clock started and you have finite number of days before you leave US, otherwise you will become out of status.

Once you find that job, without any further delay your employer has to start green card process and finish PERM, which usually takes about a year, many times more than that. It looks like you are out of time for this to happen. Also, finding such employer do do this is difficult to great extent. It is clear that your intention is to stay in US for long time and many employer would like that but irony is that that cannot be your intention when you start your H1b job.

I suggest you hire an attorney and explain this.