Hello everyone, today I would like to tell you about some interpretations of the ideas of American students studying in the United States, and today I will mainly emphasize to you that the traditional way of calling us employers to study in the United States, what is the concept, that is, traditional international students in the United States, after graduating from undergraduate or graduate school, he mainly passes OPT, and then goes to the H1B lottery, and finally, then takes EB2 or EB3 to immigrate to the United States.
So, let me explain the process in detail. First, international students in the U.S. are issued an internship visa called OPT after completing their undergraduate or graduate studies. During this period, for non-STEM students, their OPT visa is only 12 months, while for STEM students, they can enjoy an additional 12 months, for a total of 24 months of visa.
Then, during this 12-month or 24-month period, students need to prepare and participate in the H1B lottery. For non-STEM students, they only have one chance to draw a lottery, and if they are not selected, they may need to change status, such as returning to F1 student status, or applying for other legal status such as O1. And for STEM students, they have three draws as they can enjoy an additional 24-month visa.
Next, let's take a look at the stage after the H1B draw. Once you have successfully obtained your H1B visa, you will have a validity period of 3 years. Then, you'll have 65,000 visas, which are for those with a bachelor's degree or higher. Whether it is an undergraduate, master's student, or doctoral student, there is an opportunity to participate in this lottery. However, for those with a master's degree or above, they have an additional 20,000 visas to draw lottery. Of course, we will not consider the 65,000 visas for the time being, of which there are nearly 8,000 visas, which are for some citizens of Chile and Singapore.
So in general, in this step, we can see that people with a master's degree or above will have a greater probability of drawing lots than people with a bachelor's degree or above, at least you will have more than one chance of drawing lots, if you are a STEM major plus a master's degree, then you can draw twice a year, you can draw 6 times in three years, then your probability is a little bigger, if you are particularly successful, you have been selected, it just means that you can submit an application, but it does not mean that you will be approved.
Once your application has been successfully submitted and approved, you will move on to a new stage. This cycle takes about 18 months, from the stage of perm to submission 140. Once your $140 is approved, your application will go through a long queue stage. According to the latest bulletin schedule for January 2024, EB2 is scheduled for January 1, 2020, while EB3 is scheduled for September 1, 2020. This means that, at least at this stage, you need to wait 3 and a half years. Together with the previous 18 months, the total is nearly 42 months, that is, nearly 5 years.
If all goes well, after 5 years you can file a 485 adjustment of status application with both a 765 EAD and a 131AP card. It takes about a year for a 485 adjustment of status application to be approved. Therefore, it normally takes about 72 months to get a green card, which is about 6 years. Of course, while submitting 485, you may also get your EAD and AP card, also known as COMBO card, within 6 to 8 months. This means that you can legally work, live, and live in the United States.
However, this does not mean that your green card application has been approved. When your 485 petition is approved, you will get your green card in a short time, about a month or so.
Therefore, according to the latest schedule, if we go to the immigration category of this employer category to get the status of the United States, under normal circumstances, it will take about 6 years, share the whole process, and hope to provide some help to students who are considering studying in the United States now or in the future and want to stay in the United States through this category, thank you.