The five employment-based green card categories here in the U.S. vary from each other in many different ways. One is in their eligibility requirements. So, when a person is pursuing permanent resident status in the U.S. in connection to employment, what issues will be the big ones in their immigration case is heavily impacted by which type of employment-based green card they are pursuing. Experienced immigration lawyers can assist such individuals with the issues particular to the employment-based category they are seeking permanent resident status under.
The categories also vary in how commonly they are used. It appears that, in recent times, the most prevalently used category has been EB-2. This category includes individuals like professionals with advanced degrees.
This can be seen in statistics from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on green card recipients for 2014. In 2014, over a million individuals received permanent resident status here in America.
Nearly 15 percent (151,596) of these new green card recipients got their green card through an employment-based category. Here’s how these individuals were distributed among the employment-based categories:
- 48,801 were in EB-2.
- 43,156 were in EB-3.
- 40,554 were in EB-1.
- 10,723 were in EB-5.
- 8,362 were in EB-4.
So, EB-2 led all employment categories that year when it comes to green card recipients. The same was true the previous year. As a note, the number of EB-2 recipients was down quite a bit in 2014 as compared to 2013.
One wonders how long EB-2 will remain the most commonly used employment-based green card category.