Fast-Track Green Card for Multinational Managers and Executives

The employment-based preference category (EB-1) offers a quick route to green card for multinational managers and executives.

Since no labor certification is required and visa numbers are currently available, it may take less than a year for a beneficiary to receive his/her permanent resident status.

The petitioning employer must be a U.S. legal entity that is an affiliate, a subsidiary or the same employer as the company that employed the beneficiary abroad. It must have been doing business in the U.S. for at least one year.

An affiliate means that it is one of two subsidiaries both of which are owned and controlled by the same parent company or an individual. A subsidiary is a legal entity that is majority-owned by a parent company.

A beneficiary who is abroad must have been employed in a managerial or executive position outside the U.S. for at least one year during the last three (3) years immediately preceding the filing of the petition or if he/she is already in the U.S., one of the three (3) years preceding his/her entry as a non-immigrant.

Under the regulations, a manager manages the organization or a department, function, or component. He/she supervises and controls the work of other supervisory, professional or managerial employees or manages an essential function within the organization and exercises discretion over the day-to-day operations of the activity or function for which the employee has authority.

If he/she manages a function instead of a staff, which means that the position is that of a functional manager, he/she must directly manage an essential function and not performing the function being managed. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) cites the example of an individual managing the function of directing a laboratory research. If the individual primarily performs the day-to-day laboratory research, he/she is not a manager.

An executive primarily “directs the management of the organization or a major component or function of the organization; establishes the goals and policies of the organization, component or function; exercises wide latitude in discretionary decision-making; and receives only general supervision or direction from higher level executives, the board of directors or stockholders of the organization.”

To start the green card process, the petitioning employer must file an I-140 immigrant visa petition accompanied by proofs of the qualifying relationship of the company in the U.S. and the company abroad and the qualifying employment abroad and in the U.S. The petition must state the offered salary by the U.S. employer, its size, its operations and prove its ability to pay by submitting annual reports, corporate tax returns or audited financial statements, quarterly wage reports or payroll summaries.

If the job is for a functional manager, its organizational and functional flow charts should be submitted for both the job abroad and the job in the U.S. The petitioner should clearly define the function and justify its importance in the company as the USCIS has been scrutinizing such cases very carefully.

It helps that the beneficiary is already in L-1 (intra-company transferee) status but this does not guarantee approval of the green card application. The USCIS applies a stricter standard in EB-1 cases.

If the sponsored employee is already in the U.S., an I-485 application for adjustment of status may be concurrently filed with the I-140 form. If the petition is approved, he/she will be scheduled for an interview with the USCIS. Or if the employee is abroad, then he/she will be scheduled for an interview with the U.S. consular office to determine eligibility for green card under the EB-1 (c) category.