Green Card

The United States offers many opportunities for employment and tourism throughout its many states and regions. You can experience what the United States has to offer by using a work or tourist visa, but many aspiring immigrants strive for more. They wish to establish roots and make a new life in America. By obtaining a green card with the help of a green card attorney or green card lawyer, applicants can legally acquire permanent resident status, giving them access to many more opportunities that a visa cannot provide.

What Is A Green Card?

“Green card” is the colloquial term for a Permanent Resident Card, which gives an individual the right to seek residence and employment in the United States on a permanent basis. This contrasts with work and tourist visas, which only allow individuals to enter a country temporarily and for a specific reason. Work visas only allow visa holders to stay in a country until a job is done. Tourist visas allow you to enter a country for the purposes of leisure. You will be able to explore the United States for a set period of time but a tourist visa does not allow you to seek employment while you are there.

A green card is also distinct from having U.S. citizen status and the benefits that citizenship provides. Unlike green card holders, U.S. citizens have the privilege of voting in elections, running for public office, applying for certain federal jobs, applying for derivative citizenship for their children, and holding a U.S. passport. Aside from these exclusive privileges, green card holders have access to many of the same benefits as citizens, such as owning, renting, and selling property, social security and medicare, being able to apply for driver’s licenses, access to public education, and permission to serve in certain branches of the U.S. military. After five years as a green card holder, you will be able to apply for U.S. citizenship.

Applying For A Green Card

The form you’ll have to fill out to apply for permanent resident status is Form I-485 from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Applying for a green card is a complicated process that can usually take a long time. Having a good green card lawyer on your side can help simplify the process and save you time and stress. Immigration laws that affect who is eligible for a green card can be tedious to sort through and a green card attorney will make sure you have all the right paperwork and documentation to prove you are eligible for lawful permanent resident status.

You may be eligible to apply for a green card if you are an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen, an immigrant worker, an asylee or refugee who has lived in the U.S. for at least one year, or a victim of abuse. There are also certain eligibility provisions for specific people groups such as natives of Cuba and Liberia, as well as Native Americans born in Canada. If you meet any of those criteria, along with several additional ones, we can help you with the process of applying for lawful permanent resident status.

We can also help you if your spouse or children wish to immigrate to the United States as lawful permanent residents. U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents can usually petition for their immediate family members to be granted a green card. One of our family immigration lawyers can help you keep your family together, even if they are currently overseas.

Contact Sadri Law To Help Obtain Your Green Card

At Sadri Immigration Law, we are proud to have the skills and experience needed to obtain green cards for immigrants in San Jose area. We value the skills, perspectives, and cultures that immigrants bring into our Bay Area communities from abroad. If you are seeking a green card lawyer in San Francisco, San Jose, or elsewhere in the Bay Area, contact us today. It is our joy to help immigrants obtain lawful permanent resident status in any way we can. Let us guide you through the process and help your application get approved as soon as possible so that you can enjoy the benefits of employment and living in your own private space.