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Manhattan Employment Immigration Lawyers

You found a job in Manhattan. A real opportunity with a company that wants to sponsor you. And now you’re trying to figure out what happens next. How long will this take. What your employer actually has to do. Whether this whole thing is even going to work out.

Here’s what nobody tells you upfront: the employment immigration process is long. Really long. We’re talking years, not months. And if you’re from India or China, we’re potentially talking a decade or more. That’s not meant to scare you. That’s meant to prepare you for what’s actually coming so you can make informed decisions about your career and your life.

Most immigration lawyer websites will give you a nice clean list of visa categories. EB-1, EB-2, EB-3. H-1B, L-1, O-1. They’ll tell you they handle employment-based immigration and invite you to schedule a consultation. What they don’t tell you is the timeline reality. The audit risks. The denial rates. The country backlogs that could mean waiting until 2037 for a green card you apply for today.

This article is going to be different. We’re going to walk through what employment immigration actually looks like in 2025. The real numbers. The real timelines. The things that can go wrong and how to avoid them. Because you deserve to understand what you’re getting into before you commit years of your life to a process.

What Employment Immigration Lawyers Actually Do

An employment immigration lawyer guides both you and your employer through the process of getting you legal authorization to work in the United States permanently. That sounds simple but it involves multiple government agencies, multiple applications, and multiple years of waiting and documentation.

The Department of Labor has to certify that hiring you won’t take a job from an American worker. That’s called PERM labor certification. Then USCIS has to approve your employer’s petition proving you’re qualified for the job. Then you either adjust status if you’re already in the US or go through consular processing abroad. Each step has its own timeline, its own requirements, its own ways to get denied.

Your lawyer coordinates all of this. They make sure forms are filled out correctly. They respond to government requests for additional evidence. They track deadlines that, if missed, can result in automatic denials. They advise your employer on the recruitment process they’re required to complete. They keep you in legal status while you wait.

A good employment immigration lawyer also tells you the truth about your timeline. They explain your options when things take longer than expected. They help you understand whether your specific situation has complications that could cause problems down the road.

The Visa Categories You Need to Understand

Employment-based immigration falls into preference categories. Each category has different requirements and different wait times. Understanding where you fit determines everything about your timeline.

EB-1 is for priority workers. This includes people with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, business, or athletics. Outstanding professors and researchers. Multinational executives and managers being transferred to a US office. The big advantage of EB-1 is that it doesn’t require PERM labor certification. You skip that entire multi-year step. For most countries, EB-1 visas are currently available without backlog.

EB-2 is for professionals with advanced degrees or people with exceptional ability. This is where most sponsored professional workers end up. Engineers, scientists, business professionals with master’s degrees or higher. EB-2 requires PERM labor certification unless you qualify for a National Interest Waiver, which lets you self-petition without an employer sponsor. The catch is EB-2 has massive backlogs for certain countries.

EB-3 is for skilled workers with at least two years of training or experience, professionals with bachelor’s degrees, and other workers. EB-3 always requires PERM. Backlogs are similar to EB-2 for the high-demand countries.

The temporary work visas that often lead to green card sponsorship include the H-1B for specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree, L-1 for intracompany transferees, and O-1 for people with extraordinary ability. These let you work legally while your employer goes through the green card process.

The Real Timeline Nobody Tells You

Heres were it gets real. The employment green card process takes years. Not might take years. Takes years. And the timeline depends heavily on your country of birth and which category you qualify for.

Every immigration lawyer website will tell you they handle employment green cards. Very few will give you the actual numbers. Thats probly because the numbers are scary and they dont want to lose your business before you even walk in the door. But you need these numbers to make real decisions about your life and career.

Lets break down the PERM labor certification process first because thats were most people get stuck.

Step one is the Prevailing Wage Determination. Your employer requests this from the Department of Labor. Its basicly the government telling your employer the minimum they have to pay you. This step alone takes 5-8 months right now. Not weeks. Months. Just to get a wage determination.

Step two is recruitment. Before your employer can hire you permanantly, they have to prove no qualified American worker wants the job. That means job postings, newspaper advertisements, and a 30-day quiet period. This takes 2-3 months if done correctly. Alot of cases get denied here because employers dont follow the recruitment rules exactly.

Step three is actualy filing the PERM application with the Department of Labor. Current processing time is about 472 days. Thats 16 months just for the DOL to review your application. And heres the thing – aproximately 25-30% of PERM applications get audited. If your audited, add another 6+ months while they review your employers recruitment documentation.

So PERM alone is 15-24 months without an audit. With an audit your looking at 2+ years before you even get to file with USCIS.

After PERM approval, your employer files the I-140 Immigrant Petition. Thats another 6-12 months, unless they pay for premium processing wich gets it done in 15 business days. Then comes adjustment of status if your already in the US, or consular processing if your abroad. Thats another 12-24 months.

Add it up. For someone from a country without backlogs, your looking at 3-4 years minimum from when your employer starts the process to when you get your green card. And thats assuming nothing goes wrong.

The Country Backlog Reality

Now heres the part nobody wants to talk about. If your born in India or China, everything above dosn’t even begin to capture your wait time. This is the information that changes everything about how you plan your career and your life, and its the information most websites completly leave out.

The US limits how many employment-based green cards can go to any single country each year. Its 7% of the total, regardless of how many people from that country are in line. The result is massive backlogs for high-demand countries.

As of December 2025, the priority date for EB-2 India is January 2013. That means if your PERM gets approved today, you get a priority date of late 2025. But visas are only being issued to people with priority dates from 2013. Your in line behind 12 years worth of applicants.

EB-3 India is similar – priority date around April 2013. EB-2 China is October 2020, so about a 5-year backlog. The rest of the world is generaly current or has minimal wait times.

What does this mean practicaly? If your from India in the EB-2 category, your probly looking at waiting until the mid-2030s for your green card. You’ll need to maintain H-1B status that entire time, wich has its own complications.

This isnt meant to discourage you. Its meant to help you plan. People make major life decisions – buying houses, starting families, making career moves – without understanding there probly a decade away from permanent residency. You deserve to know what your actually facing.

What Your Employer Actually Has To Do

Your employer plays a huge role in wheather your case succeeds. The PERM process puts significant burdens on them, and alot of cases fail because employers dont meet there obligations. This is why having a lawyer who works closely with your employer – not just with you – is absolutly critical.

Most people focus on there own qualifications and paperwork. But the reality is that your case is only as strong as your employers compliance. Even if your perfectly qualified, if your employer messes up the recruitment process or cant prove ability to pay, your case fails. You need to understand what there required to do so you can make sure its actualy happening.

During recruitment, your employer has to post the job in specific places. There’s newspaper ads required – two Sunday editions in a newspaper of general circulation. Job postings on the company website and internal job boards. For professional positions, they need three additional recruitment steps from a list that includes job fairs, professional organizations, and campus recruitment.

Every step has to be documented. If an American applies and is qualified, your employer has to interview them and document why they werent hired using lawful job-related reasons. If they cant justify rejecting a US worker, the PERM gets denied.

Your employer also has to prove they can actualy pay you the prevailing wage. For big companies this is easy. For smaller employers or startups, proving financial ability can be a real challenge. The Department of Labor wants to see tax returns, annual reports, or audited financial statements showing the ability to pay.

The job requirements matter too. Your employer cant require qualifications you dont already have. If the job posting says “5 years experiance required” but you only have 3, thats a problem. If it requires a specific degree you dont have, thats a problem. The job requirements have to match your actual qualifications.

Why Employment Immigration Cases Get Denied

Understanding why cases fail helps you avoid those pitfalls. Here’s what actualy causes denials. And these arnt rare edge cases – were talking about problems that affect thousands of applicants every year. The 40% PERM denial rate and the fact that less then half of RFE responses succeed should tell you how common these issues are.

Knowing these failure points in advance lets you address them before they become problems. Your lawyer should be identifying these risks early and making sure your case dosnt fall into these traps.

Experience letter problems are huge. You need letters from previous employers verifying your work experiance. These letters have to be specific – job duties, dates of employment, hours worked. Vague letters that just say “John worked here and did a good job” get cases denied. If you cant get a proper letter from a past employer, your case is in trouble.

Degree equivalency issues trip up alot of people. A three-year bachelor’s degree from India or other countries may not be considered equivalent to a four-year US degree. If your EB-2 case requires a master’s degree or equivalent and your foreign credentials dont meet that standard, you could be looking at a denial or getting bumped down to EB-3.

Employer financial problems sink cases. If your employer cant demonstrate the ability to pay your salary – especailly smaller companies – the petition can be denied. This gets worse in economic downturns when companies have weaker financials.

Recruitment failures during PERM are extremly common. Missed deadlines for job postings. Improper documentation. Failure to interview qualified US applicants properly. About 40% of PERM applications that go to final adjudication get denied, and recruitment problems are a major reason why.

RFE mishandling destroys cases. When USCIS sends a Request for Evidence, you have 30-90 days to respond. Miss that deadline and your case is automaticly denied. Respond inadequately and you’ve probly lost. Only 44% of employment-based petitions that recieved an RFE in 2023 were ultimately approved.

Three Mistakes That Destroy Employment Immigration Cases

After years of handling employment immigration cases, certain mistakes come up again and again. These arnt obscure technical issues – there the kind of common sense errors that seem obvious in hindsight but people keep making. Understanding these patterns can save you years of wasted time and thousands of dollars.

Never assume your employer knows what there doing. Many employers have never sponsored someone before. They dont understand the recruitment requirements, the documentation standards, or the timeline realities. A good lawyer educates and guides the employer as much as the employee. Youve got to make sure your employer is actualy following through on there obligations, not just assuming everythings being handled.

Dont change jobs at the wrong time. If you leave your sponsoring employer before your I-140 is approved and you’ve been in H-1B status for at least 6 years, you could lose years of progress. There are portability rules that let you change employers under certain conditions, but timing matters enormously. Talk to a lawyer before making any job changes during the process.

Dont ignore status maintenance. While your waiting years for your green card, you have to maintain valid immigration status. H-1B has a 6-year limit, though extensions are available if your PERM or I-140 has been pending long enough. If you fall out of status, you could be barred from adjusting status in the US entirely.

How Much Does Employment Immigration Actually Cost

Lets talk about money because this is another area were people get surprised. Employment immigration involves multiple filings, each with there own government fees and attorney fees. Knowing the full picture helps you plan and also helps you evaluate wheather a lawyers quote is reasonable.

Government filing fees include the prevailing wage request, PERM filing, I-140 petition, and adjustment of status or consular processing fees. These can total several thousand dollars just in government fees. Premium processing for the I-140 – wich speeds it up to 15 business days – costs an additional $2,805 as of 2025.

Attorney fees vary widely. Some lawyers charge flat fees per stage of the process. Others charge hourly. For a straightforward PERM and I-140, attorney fees might range from $5,000 to $15,000 or more depending on the firms experiance and location. Manhattan firms generaly charge on the higher end because of overhead and the complexity of cases they handle.

Your employer typicaly pays for PERM and I-140 costs – both the government fees and attorney fees. The adjustment of status portion is usualy the employees responsability. Make sure you understand whose paying for what before the process starts.

What Happens Next – Finding the Right Manhattan Employment Immigration Lawyer

Your looking for a lawyer who tells you the truth about timelines, not someone who makes it sound easy to get your business. You want someone whose handled cases like yours – same visa category, same industry, idealy same country of birth so they understand your backlog situation.

Ask about there experiance with PERM audits. Ask what happens if something goes wrong. Ask how they’ll keep you informed during a process that takes years. Ask about fees upfront – attorney fees, filing fees, everything.

This is not the time to cut corners. A denied PERM or I-140 dosn’t just waste years of your life – it can put you in a position were your running out of H-1B time with no path forward. The stakes are to high for inexperiance.

Look for someone who handles both the employer side and your side of the process. Who communicates with the Department of Labor and USCIS proactivly. Who has systems in place to track deadlines across multi-year cases.

Manhattan has excellent employment immigration lawyers because so many major employers are here. Tech companies, financial firms, healthcare systems – they all sponsor workers. Find a lawyer who understands your industry and your specific situation. Schedule consultations, ask hard questions, and make sure your comfortable with someone whose going to be handling your case for years.

The process is long. The stakes are high. But with the right legal help and realistic expectations, you can navigate employment immigration successfully. Start by understanding what your actualy facing. Then find someone who can help you get through it.

Employment immigration is a marathon, not a sprint. The people who succeed are the ones who go in with there eyes open, understand the timeline realities, and have professionals guiding them through every step. Manhattan has the lawyers and the employers to make it happen. Now its about finding the right team to get you from here to permanent residency.

Dont let the timeline scare you away from pursuing whats important. Just make sure you understand what your commiting to before you start. Thats how you set yourself up for success instead of frustration and disappointment down the road. Your future in America is worth fighting for – just make sure you know what the fight actualy looks like before you step into the ring.