The path of the candidate for immigration is often long and strewn with pitfalls… Nevertheless, the American dream is within the reach of many of us. Focus on the few winning strategies that lead to obtaining the coveted sesame, the green card!
- Get your green card thanks to your family
They say that love works miracles … So, know that undoubtedly, the most direct (and the most used) way to obtain the green card is to marry an American citizen! It is the latter who will initiate the procedures for you. You will first get a conditional green card, valid for two years. After these two years, if the couple is still married, you can apply for a ten-year green card and also you can remove conditions on green card.
If there is no American soul mate for you, perhaps you have a family member who is an American citizen? A child over 21, a father, a mother, a (half) brother or a (half) sister can sponsor you in order to obtain a green card.
- Obtain your green card thanks to the lottery
100% of the winners have tried their luck! Since 1994, the famous “Diversity Visa Lottery Program” has offered 50,000 green cards by drawing lots. Each year, it attracts more than 13 million participants. Registration, free, takes place every year between early October and early November, simply online, via this link:
AMERICAN LOTTERY SITE
You have to answer a few questions and send a photo to American standards. Everything is clearly explained on the official site. The response is usually obtained within one year. The selection is made at random, by computer.
Be careful, this lottery is the subject of many fraudulent sites that promise you wonders. Beware and remember above all that registration is free! Any intermediary who offers you online check-in against payment is therefore inevitably useless… Good luck!
- Obtain your green card through work
thanks to the sponsorship of an employer The third option is to get sponsored by an American employer. The country issues nearly 140,000 green cards for employment each year.
This, however, requires that you find a position in the United States with a company that is ready to take on long and expensive steps for you. Above all, it must present a “Labor Certification” which serves to prove that no American citizen can correspond to the function for which you are intended!
Suffice to say that unless you are sponsored by a multinational that masters all the workings of the administrative labyrinth, the course will look like a Stations of the Cross. Not to mention the quotas which, each year, fail thousands of applications.
- Obtain your green card thanks to an extraordinary talent: the EB-1 procedure
If you have nationally or even internationally recognized skills in the fields of science, art, education, business or athletics, you may have your chance to get the green card to practice your talents in America!
The huge advantage of this procedure is that it is not tied to a job offer or to a specific employer. As a self-employed person, you can therefore completely consider this track! However, you must be able to prove the exceptional nature of your career, such as a prize, an award, a recognized prestigious distinction.
The procedure may concern exceptional professors and researchers whose work or publications have been recognized unanimously throughout the world.
The procedures are similar to those of applying for a green card through employment, with the only difference that these people do not need a “Labor Certification”.
- Obtain your green card by investing in the United States: the EB-5 procedure
Little publicized, the federal program EB5 also makes it possible to obtain a green card. This is the path that the authors of this site have chosen.
The principle is simply to invest in the American economy. However, you do not become an entrepreneur : you invest your capital in a company authorized to receive such funds, but do not manage it in any way. At the end of the process, you recover your investment … except for disaster! To avoid a bad experience, read our article How to choose where to invest to get your green card .
You will not necessarily receive interest on your financial investment, but will get a green card!
The immense added value of this process is to offer – in a single file – the green card to the investor as well as to all the members of his direct family, that is to say his husband and all his children under the age of 21. years !
It is now possible to leave very quickly in the United States thanks to this program. While waiting for his green card, the investor can move with his family to the United States with an E2 visa and his husband an authorization to work. I detail all this in the article on how to get a green card with the EB5 investor visa and where to invest to get your resident card.
- An alternative: the E2 visa
While it also requires an investment in the United States, the E2 visa is quick to obtain and less demanding on several points. He does not offer a green card but nevertheless allows him to settle permanently in the USA with his family.
