A lawful permanent resident is someone who has been granted indefinite residency in the United States. The right to work in the United States for most employers or for yourself is included in permanent residence. Permanent residents keep their citizenship from their home country. Use this form to let us know you are voluntarily abandoning your status as a lawful permanent resident (LPR) of the United States. We will update your records to show you are no longer an LPR. 

An “alien registration card,” sometimes known as a green card, is issued to permanent residents (because at one time the card was green in color). You can apply for a social security card and utilize your green card to confirm your employment eligibility. There are a number of options for becoming a lawful permanent resident, including: 

• being sponsored by a close relative (spouse, parent, child, or sibling)
• having an employer sponsor you
• obtaining refugee or asylum status
• winning the visa lottery for diversity
• being a member of an unique group of people, such as investors or religious workers

Immediate Relative Sponsorship:  The number of green cards accessible to immediate relatives of US residents is not set. As a result, you can apply for a green card without a waiting period at the same time as or after an immigrant visa petition is approved. 

Immediate relatives include:

• spouses of U.S. citizens
• unmarried children under the age 21 of at least one U.S. citizen parent
• parents of U.S. citizen children who are 21 years and older

Other Family Members Sponsorship: If the family member who is sponsoring you is not a close relative, you will likely have to wait longer for your green card. The four legal preference categories are listed below:

• First preference: applications submitted by U.S. citizen parents for their unmarried children aged 21 and up fall into this category.
• Second preference: this category includes petitions for Legal Permanent Residents’ spouses, minor children, and unmarried sons and daughters (age 21 and up).
• Third preference: Petitioners who are married sons and daughters of US citizens, as well as their spouses and minor children, fall into this category.
• Fourth preference: this category applies to petitions for U.S. citizens’ brothers and sisters, as well as their spouses and minor children, who are at least 21 years old.

Employer-sponsored: Foreign nationals who are sponsored for residency through employment are only eligible for a restricted number of green cards. In many situations, a U.S. firm must demonstrate that there are no eligible, willing, or able American workers for the post being sponsored and agree to pay the foreign national a particular specified wage upon issuing of the green card. The length of the wait is determined by the preferred category in which an application is submitted. The five preference categories are listed below:

• First preference: individuals with exceptional abilities in the arts, sciences, education, business, or athletics; excellent professors and researchers; and certain multinational company managers and executives
• Second preference: experts with advanced degrees or remarkable abilities
• Third preference: workers that are skilled and experienced
• Fourth preference: Religious workers and other special groups of immigrants
• Fifth preference: Investors that spend $1 million or $500,000 (if the business is located in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA)) in a U.S. business that generates or, in some situations, sustains at least 10 full-time employees are eligible for employment creation visas.

Diversity Visa Lottery for Green Cards: Every year, the United States awards a limited number of green cards to qualified applicants from specific countries through a lottery system (the “diversity visa lottery”). Because this method is intended to diversify the immigrant population, nationals of countries where the United States receives a large number of immigrants are not eligible to participate. Depending on previous year’s immigration statistics, the list of prohibited participants can change annually.