US Immigration paths for scientific researchers: Part 2
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CAREER CENTRAL
US Immigration paths for scientific researchers: Part 2 By Marco Pignone
This article is the second part of a series in MRS Bulletin on achieving a path to a green card in the United States. It will cover and compare the criteria for EB-1A classification for foreign nationals of extraordinary ability, EB-1B classification for foreign nationals who are outstanding researchers and professors, and information on the National Interest Waiver category.
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art 1 of this series (see MRS Bulletin, May 2020, p. 396) provided an overview of the US immigration process for scientific researchers. If you are not familiar with the F-1 student visa, OPT (Optional Practical Training), which provides three years of work authorization after graduation, or the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) labor certification process, and why you should avoid it, we invite you to read that article at www.mrs. org/bulletin/career-feature-1. This article will discuss the H-1B visa and the J-1 visa and the impact each one has on your own personal immigration path.
The H-1B visa
If you are an F-1 student who has previously graduated and are nearing the end of
your three years of OPT work authorization, you should start planning to get an H-1B visa, which can give you up to six years of legal status or more, or a J-1 visa (up to five years). The first question you have to ask yourself is whether you want to go into industry or complete a postdoc program. If you want to go into industry or remain in industry if you are working for a private company during your OPT, then you should enter an H-1B visa lottery each year, giving yourself a total of three chances. There are a limited number of H-1B visas for private companies, while there are an unlimited number of H-1B visas for university postdoc positions. For this reason, the United States runs a lottery every year around April 1 for private employers. Your potential employer
has to file an H-1B petition for you and hope that you win the lottery. Under new rules introduced in 2020, the employer only has to “register” to enter the lottery, and then they file the actual petition only if you win the lottery. Depending on how many petitions are received by the Immigration Service each year, the odds of winning the lottery could be anywhere from 1 in 2 to 1 in 4. If you were an F-1 student, you should try to enter the H-1B lottery each year of your three years of OPT. If you graduated from a foreign PhD program, you may also use the H-1B visa lottery if you want to work for a private employer within the United States. If you win the lottery, you have up to six years of H-1B status, as long as you continue your employment with your H-1B employer or in a “same or similar” position with another private employer. There are also laws allowing you to extend your H-1B status beyond six years if you have an approved I-140 petition (this is the EB-1 or National Interest Waiver [NIW] petition mentioned in Part 1 of the series, which will be discussed in more detail in a future article.
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