How to Employ a Foreign Worker and How to Ensure Visa Approval

Are you looking at hiring overseas workers for your business? An international workforce may well be the missing link to your company’s success in an increasingly global market. But how do you go about hiring one? 

The U.S. immigration policies are quite complex, not to mention the national discourse that sometimes seems to discourage foreign immigration. But for every fiscal year, 150,000 foreign employment-based immigrant visas are given to qualified applicants. And that’s made possible under the provisions of the U.S. Immigration Law.

So, do not be deterred. The U.S immigration law outlines all the options you have to bring qualified foreign employees to the country. The U.S employment-based immigrant visas are divided into various categories based on skills, ability, disability, spouses, and children. And whereas that might seem to compound the already existing complexities involved in hiring foreign employees, we have detailed four important steps on how to employ a foreign worker and ensure their visa is approved.

Steps Towards An Immigrant Visa

Step 1: Examine Your Options

There are different visa programs available depending on your work specifications for your prospective employee, and their future visa and residential status. Therefore, you have to decide the appropriate visa for the type of foreign employee you are looking to hire. Douglas Lightman, an immigration and international affairs lawyer, explains that if you are planning on your new employee to become a permanent resident, then your best bet would be to use employer-sponsored green cards. On the contrary, you can sponsor a foreign employee under subclass 457 visa (also called the Temporary Work/Skilled visa).

Either way, you will have to engage and be approved by the U.S. Department of Immigration as the standard sponsor. This body allows businesses having difficulty finding local labor to employ foreign workers with qualifications and skills in specific occupations. Better still, you could use the services of an attorney to offer insight and even handle your specific case.

Step 2: Obtain a Labor Certification

The prospective employer or the agent has to first obtain a labor certification that is approved by the Department of Labor. After that, the employer should then proceed to file an Immigrant Petition for an Alien Worker, which is called Form I-140, with the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This body will then approve the appropriate employment-based preference category for your prospective foreign worker. 

The Department of Labor certification is put in place to ensure that the admittance of a foreign employee does not in any way harm the existing job opportunities, working conditions, and the wages of workers.

Step 3: Petition the USCIS for Visa

The party responsible for obtaining the visas for their prospective foreign employees is the employer or agent. And just because you were approved for certification doesn’t imply that you will automatically get a visa. 

Here, the USCIS approves your petition, sends it to the National Visa Center (NVC), and once received, the NVC assigns it a case number. And when your application’s priority date meets the most recent qualifying one, the NVC will then have you complete Form DS-261, before processing will start, subject to non-refundable fees.

Step 4: Visa Fees And Documentation

Application fees are charged for the following services:

• Processing an immigrant visa application (Form DS-260)
• Filing of Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker.
• The medical examination and the requisite vaccinations.
• Other miscellaneous costs may include travel expenses to the embassy or consulates, document photocopies, police certificates, etc.

The following documents are required for visa processing

• Passports
• Form DS-260 (Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration Application)
• 2×2 photographs.
• Civil Documents for the applicant.
• Complete Medical Examination Forms.
• Financial support (this should prove to the consular that the employee wouldn’t become a public charge in the U.S)

Visa Eligibility

To ensure that you secure a visa for your prospective international employee, there are certain conditions and activities that you must meet. And failure to do so many renders an applicant ineligible for a visa. And if that is the case, then you will be informed by the consular office. The most glaring ineligibility criteria include:

• Submission of fraudulent documents.
• Drug trafficking.

There are a lot of complexities involved in the process of foreign employee worker visa application. However, you can use the above-mentioned steps to navigate the process and build your foreign workforce. Or you can hire the services of an attorney to get that taken care of at a reasonable fee. Either way, a visa is required by the foreign applicant to enter the United States at any Port of Entry, in addition to the Covid-19 Testing that is needed for entry in the U.S.