CASE: PERM Labor Certification
EMPLOYER: Korean Church
BENEFICIARY: Korean Pastor
LOCATION: Virginia
Our client is a senior pastor of a Korean church in Virginia, and he currently does his ministry work at this church under an H-1B status. This church was willing to petition him for a second-preference petition (I-140). Our client has a master’s degree in Divinity. After talking to our client, our firm concluded that his employer can petition him as a Pastor. Second preference petitions for Koreans are current, which means that if a PERM Labor Certification for a second preference position gets approved, the I-140 and I-485 could be filed simultaneously. Based on our client’s education, professional and working background, our office determined that he is eligible for EB-2 classification. Our client eventually retained us on December 15, 2014.
Prior to filing PERM, our firm prepared the prevailing wage request, job order, advertisements, internal job posting, recruitment report, and all other steps which are important pre-PERM filing. Take note that PERM could be filed at least 60 days from the job posting date or 30 days from the last ad. On March 4, 2015, the prevailing wage request was filed. After we obtained his foreign degree evaluation report, our office filed the job order on May 4, 2015. On July 29, 2015, we promptly filed PERM. Eventually, on January 28, 2016, the PERM Labor Certification was approved – an EB2 position for the Korean beneficiary. Now our client can file the I-140 petition and I-485 Application.