Introduction to Green Card
Dmitry Skachkov
Theory & Modeling | ? Quantum Physics ? Magnetic Phenomena ? Electrochemistry ? EPR ? NMR ? Schottky Contact ? Nonlinear Optics
A Green Card is a document of permanent residency in the United States. Having the Green Card you can stay and work in US permanently at any type of job. This is in contrast to student or working visa, where you need to stay in US only for period of validity of the visa, and, moreover, you can study or work only at particular place, issued by the visa. In order to switch your study to another University, you need to initiate the process of transformation your current visa to another university, which has some limitations.
On the other hand, having Green Card has some responsibilities. In particular, you need to work or study in US, and you can be absent in US no more than 6 months.
Foreign Ph.D. student studying in US on student visa, has many opportunities after graduation. After graduation, he/she can return to his/her country in order to work as a Ph.D. holder. Another possibility, is to become postdoc in order to continue your research in University/Laboratory, or to work in Company/Laboratory using the allowance for student visa to work one year after graduation in your speciality. During this year you can write the application for the Green Card and, after some time, get the document showing your permanent residency in US. After getting the permanent residency you can work on any job, or create your own business.
Sponsorship from University for a Green Card for Ph.D. and post-docs students is very rare event, and Universities give sponsorship mostly for Assistant Professors only. Companies have more flexibilities and can propose you sponsorship for Green Card, for example, under EB-3 category, which has long application process.
领英推荐
If you would like to get Green Card for you and your family, you can use so called "self-petition" application, which does not require sponsorship and you can apply by yourself. For self-petition, there are available two categories for application, EB-1A and EB-2/NIW. To understand the process of application for these categories, you can read here and on official USCIS web-site.
Useful links: