Employment Based Permanent Residency

Permanent residents, also known as green card holders, can permanently remain in the United States to live and to work.

An international employee can seek permanent residency through several different ways including employment. All applications and petitions associated with University of Florida employment sponsored immigrant statuses for permanent residency must be submitted by ICS/HRS. The sponsoring department should contact ICS directly for these types of requests.

While each application process leads to permanent residency, the application procedures do vary. Following are the three categories that UF utilizes to sponsor international employees for permanent residency.

EB-2 PERM – SPECIAL HANDLING

This application involves the University demonstrating that it recruited for the international employee’s faculty/teaching position through a good-faith search that included at least 1 advertisement in a national professional journal.  The international employee must be employed in a permanent, full-time teaching position. The University must document that the international employee was the most qualified candidate who applied through the competitive recruitment process.  Please note that the University is required to file the application within 18 months of the issuance of the international employee’s offer letter.  If this date is missed, it can run a new ad and issue a new offer letter. 

EB-2 PERM – REGULAR PROCESSING

The purpose of the PERM Labor Certification – Regular Processing is to prove to the Department of Labor that there is a shortage in the labor market for the offered position.  This application involves the University demonstrating that a full-scale recruitment was conducted in good-faith and that the University found no minimally qualified US applicants (US citizens or permanent residents) who were ready, willing and able to accept the employment and who could not perform the job duties after a reasonable period of on-the-job training.  The entire recruitment process must take place in under 180 days.  

EB-1(B) OUTSTANDING PROFESSOR / RESEARCHER

This application requires showing international recognition for the international employee’s outstanding achievements in a particular academic field.  The international employee must have at least 3 years of experience in teaching or research in that academic area and that the international employee is entering the United States for the purpose of pursuing a tenured or tenured-track teaching or comparable (permanent) research position at a university or other institution of higher education.  Finally, the international employee must prove international acclaim by submitting evidence for at least 2 of the following 6 categories:

1. Evidence of receipt of major prizes or awards for outstanding achievement
2. Evidence of membership in associations that require their members to demonstrate outstanding achievement
3. Evidence of published material in professional publications written by others about the alien’s work in the academic field
4. Evidence of participation, either on a panel or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or allied academic field
5. Evidence of original scientific or scholarly research contributions in the field
6. Evidence of authorship of scholarly books or articles (in scholarly journals with international circulation) in the field

OTHER EMPLOYMENT-BASED PETITIONS AND APPLICATIONS

International employees may personally file self-sponsored petitions for immigrant classifications: EB-1 for persons of extraordinary ability and EB-2 (National Interest Waiver) for aliens of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business whose presence and activities in the U.S. are in the national interest. Private legal counsel and services may be retained by, and at the sole cost of, the international employees for petitions for such classifications. For these employee-sponsored cases, employing University units may provide a copy of the current offer of employment letters and/or a confirmation of current employment letters. However, due to University policy regarding employment appointments, departments/centers are not permitted to issue letters to international employees that indicate that he or she will be offered employment on a permanent basis without written permission issued by ICS. A sample of the authorized letter is found under the Resources section.