Yale Sponsorship for Faculty

Please note that Premium Processing fees increased on 2/26/24 to $2805, and other USCIS application fees will increase on 4/1/24. During this transition, your OISS adviser will send you an email to advise you which fee rate to use for your existing sponsorship requests. Learn more about this change here.

Tenured or Ladder Track faculty automatically qualify for OISS sponsorship for Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) status or “green card”. If the position includes teaching, and if there was a formal search (see details under Recruitment Advertising) then OISS normally applies using what is called Labor Certification Special Handling. The specific LPR category is EB-2, and it normally takes 24-30 months to complete. Please speak with Mihwa Lee if you have any questions about OISS sponsorship of LPR status.

If the faculty member was not recruited, it may still be possible to sponsor the green card using the EB-1 category. Any LPR sponsorship can also include family members (spouse and children under 21 years old.


H-1B Status During LPR Process

Please note that because the LPR application process can take a long time, most faculty need to secure H-1B Temporary Worker visa status to begin their appointment at Yale. Please contact your OISS adviser to begin the H-1B steps as soon as possible. Also note that the H-1B status must continue until the actual green card has been issued.

EB-2 Overview for Teaching Faculty

Assessment and Prevailing Wage

Before OISS can determine if the faculty member qualifies for LPR under the EB-2 Labor Certification Special Handling we need a record in OISS Connect, and the following materials:

Once it is determined that we can pursue the Labor Certification, we have to do a posting announcing that we are sponsoring LPR, and obtain a Prevailing Wage from the DOL (DOL processing time fluctuates significantly without any notice/explanation and it may take 12 months.)

Labor Certification

OISS has to enter all evidence of the recruitment and hire into a DOL online system called PERM. The deadline is to have this step completed within 18 months of the original job offer (not the job start date). The DOL takes 9-12 months to review and approve the Labor Certification.

See the Labor Certification Checklist for details on what needs to be provided to OISS.

I-140 Eligibility Application

Once the Labor Certification has been approved, Yale must submit the employer's I-140 application to immigration (USCIS.) This form needs to be submitted within 4 months of receiving the approved Labor Certification or else the entire process must start over. We recommend using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (available as part of Adobe Creative Cloud from the Yale Software Library). OISS normally needs the following (see the full Checklist) to be able to submit the employer's I-140 application:

I-485 Adjustment of Status

The very last step in the process is called Adjustment of Status. This is the faculty member's personal application as the government is asking about personal information such as family background and any problems with legal issues in the past. The faculty member is advised to retain an immigration attorney early in the process (by around step #2 above) to begin working on this final step. OISS is able to provide names of appropriate immigration attorneys upon request. The fees for the immigration forms run around $2,000 per family member, and the lawyer fees can be an additional $1,800 - 2,400 per family member. As a legal issue OISS cannot advise the faculty member on issues related to the Adjustment of Status. Once OISS has obtained the I-140 Approval Notice, it will be shared with the faculty member and the attorney representing the faculty member. The rest of the green card process is coordinated by the attorney.