I have my PR and my US based employer is suggesting to initiate my GC processing. I want to know should I proceed with it? Will it affect approval of/getting my Canadian Citizenship in any way? Any suggestions? Anyone who became a Citizen with an ongoing US GC application (i140 or any stage)?
Hi @RIVAL,
Your US green card has nothing to do with Canadian immigration/citizenship.
If your employer wants to file GC, it is their prerogative. Although you can express your lack of interest, it doesn’t mean anything to anyone (Canadian immigration/ US immigration/ your employer).
It will not affect any chances of you becoming a Canadian citizen or Papau New Guinea citizenship.
On a flip side, if your I-140 gets approved and you have priority date of 2020/2021 (which itself is useless), you can hope for becoming US permanent resident in next century. But there are many other permutations/combinations to talk about if you have priority date in EB2.
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Suppose you become Canadian citizen and already had your I-140 approved, then you might consider for EB1C (conditions apply)-port date from EB2.
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If you have US born child he/she might sponsor you in next 21 years.
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You can work on TN visa, O-1 visa, file your own corp or LLC (in Canada) and have a office in US (move intra company and find C2C job).
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Also I want to point out that your I-140 process can still be continued when you are in Canada (if your employer is willing and decent one), when your priority date becomes current you can file for consular processing of immigrant visa instead of I-485 (adjustment of status). This should be your wildest dream/fantasy that your 2020-2021 PD will be current in this century. The probability/odds of you winning a $1 million lottery in Canada is higher than your PD (EB2/3 or EB1) will be current in this century, so relax.
But lets say, if you stay in US in hope of I-140 (which might take decent 1.5- 2 years for approval, on top of that you need to stay with your employer 6 more months to make that I-140 irrevocable) and you pass your chances of Canadian Citizenship or extend your PR (assuming you have one), then you will be crowned as another Mr. H1B of the year by your company for being fooled in hopes of elusive GREENCARD.
Just take into account the time it would take for that approved I-140 (irrevocable one) vs time you have on Canadian PR left (if you have one).
Thanks,
Akel
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@RIVAL My suggestion would be to get your I-140 and then move to Canada. It helps if you want to move back to US before getting your Canadian citizenship - unless you’ve time left on your 6 year H1B. Currently, processing time for PERM is fast and you never know how US immigration rules might change. I-140/green card will have zero impact on Canadian PR/Citizenship.
I totally don’t understand how I-140 can still be used even after becoming Canadian Citizen?
H1b or I-140 all of that are linked to a person’s name and Indian passport (If from India). Correct?
So once we become Canadian Citizen, you need to give up Indian Citizenship. So, Somebody told me its not possible to have that continued this way.
I believe that I-140 need not be restarted again, and if the I-140 is retained by the employer he/she can still proceed with previous I-140. But the person will be considered as born in India and his/her PD will be charged as per India’s PD list.
Again the caveat is when filing I-485 or consular processing from Canada (you provide an explanation along with supplement J for the original I-140) that the person is now Canadian passport holder and job (I-140) is still bonafide with the actual employer.
I am adding a link from Murthy forum which clarifies that when a Indian person who becomes a Canadian, he will be charged as per Indian que for priority dates.
Again this is entirely likely but one would need to hire a experienced lawyer when that becomes a possibility.
Anyone with any other information, please let us know as well.
I understand that. This still does not answer clearly the question i raised earlier.
This example could be for Ravi you applied H1b and i140 after becoming Canadian Citizen… So priority date could be after becoming Canadian citizen… My question or that excerpt you pasted, could be hypothetical for now…
Well to answer your question consider what happens if your Indian passport expires while you have an approved I-140? Would you then need to restart the process with your new passport number.
Consider another case where for example a person has an Indian passport but after getting married they change their name or for that matter they decide to change their name for the fun of it. Now per your assertion since the I-140 was tied to a persons name they would then need to initiate the process again.
In both the cases, as you can guess the processing doesn’t need to start. I-140 is an immigration petition that pertains to an employer who has convinced USCIS that they weren’t able to hire for a role domestically and hence the foreign national they hire for the role be eligible for an employment based green card. As long as the individual remains the same, and their priority date becomes current they can file for an adjustment of status. What passport they hold or what their nationality is of no consequence.
The case that is somewhat ambiguous may happen if a country splits up into two, hypothetically if you were born before 1947 in Dhaka then you could be considered to be born in British India, East Pakistan or Bangladesh based on different instances of time in history and the present. I’m not sure how cases like these are adjudicated but I suspect that this is mostly hypothetical with very little practical consequences.
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This must be the single dumbest rule in the history of forever.