Nutmegger

That's correct -- unless his wife has abilities that, after applying for an EAD, would enable her to obtain the type of job that would be conducive to the employer eventually sponsoring her for a green card.

Pulaski

So you were employed by an E-2 business and in a specialist role, which is a different situation from someone using an E-2 visa for an ordinary, mainstream business, where there is no direct route to an E-2.

For an ordinary E-2 visa holder, the best hope would probably be to accumulate $500,000 - $1million (depending on where in the US your business is located) of qualifying investment assets and self-sponsoring for an EB-5 green card.

scrubbedexpat099

Agree it had nothing to do with the E2, sounds like EB classification, just used an E2 temporarily.

Most common I have seen is child marrying USC, naturalising and sponsoring parents.

durham_lad

Thanks for that explanation, it has been almost a quarter of a century since we went through that process.

At the same time as I was doing this a colleague in a slightly different field and at a different site a few miles down the river was on the commissioning team of the first ever production facility of the then brand new technology HFC's (replacing CFC's) was also offered a permanent job. The same lawyer who was helping me with my green card application saw that he was Irish and therefore near certain to be granted a green card in that year's lottery. He still had to have a sponsorship letter with job offer and go through the same FBI background checks but the company did not have to advertise the job and provide evidence that a USC couldn't be found.

scrubbedexpat099

Did not realise the odds were ever that good for the DV.

durham_lad

In the Fall of 1993 apparently there had been a very slow take-up of slots for Irish citizens. I also recall that from the start that year there were no places for people from the UK, Mexico or India.

Pulaski

Nor Chinese, Brazilians, Russians, or Pakistanis; nor IIRC Indonesians and Filipinos.

Orangepants

The odds for the Irish seemed really high back in the 80s and 90s. All my cousins except one, so that is nine of them, were successful in the DV lottery. Their parents entered them at some point when they were kids and once they'd graduated college, six of them took the opportunity to come over for a couple of years. Only one has stayed, he's in NYC.

GeoffM

In my limited experience US schools get an unfairly bad reputation. But then we've only looked at the good schools. Maybe inner city schools are pretty awful.

karenkaren1

....assuming this route stays available

Nutmegger

There's no maybe about it.

Pulaski

IIRC 40% of DV visas used to be reserved for the Irish, so 20,000 of the 50,000 available annually.

karenkaren1

must be the luck of the Irish

Pulaski

Yeah, they were lucky enough to have their Uncle Ted serving in the Senate!

scrubbedexpat099

It was not called the Irish visa for nothing.