ASK THE CONSUL: VICE CONSUL ERIK BLACK DISCUSSES IMMIGRATING TO THE UNITED STATES

Hello and welcome to July's "Ask the Consul" podcast. As you have probably surmised, the Embassy has tried to focus on patriotic themes for this month's podcasts in honor of our Independence Day celebration on July 4th. This "Ask the Consul" podcast will be no different as we answer questions about the epitome of U.S. patriotism, actually becoming a citizen through immigration to the United States.

As you are all aware, it is illegal to get a tourist visa from the U.S. Consulate in Ukraine and use it to go live in the United States permanently. In fact, the purpose of the visa interview is to make sure that the person who is getting the visa does not intend to use it to permanently reside in the country.

How then, does one legally immigrate to the United States?

There are two broad groups of immigrant visas to the United States - those that are based on your family and those that are based on your employment. One thing that they both have in common is that in order to immigrate to the United States, someone in the United States, either a family member or an employer, must file an immigrant petition for you.

Let's start with family members. Both U.S. Citizens and legal permanent residents (green card holders) can file petitions for their family members to come to the United States. U.S. Citizens can file petitions for their spouses, children, parents and siblings. Legal permanent residents can file petitions for parents, spouses and children. The wait time for these visas will vary, however, depending on if the relative in the United States is a citizen or a legal permanent resident.

There is another requirement of the relative as well. Besides simply having a relationship with you, the relative also has to show that they meet the current standardized financial guidelines to support you once you are in the United States. That also means that the more people they are petitioning for at one time, the more money they have to have in reserve to support the family once they arrive.

The other broad group of immigrant petitions are the employment based petitions. These petitions are rarer than the family based petitions, but they still constitute a significant portion of immigrants that arrive in the United States. There are some occupations in the United States that are facing serious shortages. One of the prime examples of this are the shortages faced by the health care industry, in particular the nursing shortage. Thus, in order to attract nurses to the United States, the government has made it possible for them to immigrate.

Like work visas, the petitioners for these visas have to show that there really is a job for the prospective employee, that the employee is qualified to fill that position, and that the employee will be paid at the prevailing wage for that position.

Besides the two broad groups of petitioned immigrant visas, there is yet another way to immigrate to the United States that many Ukrainians are already familiar with, and that is through the Diversity Visa Lottery. The Diversity Visa was created to give countries with a low rate of family and employment based petitions the opportunity to get green cards and immigrate to the United States. People wishing to apply for the lottery must simply submit an application during the appropriate time frame, usually October to December of each year. Besides the cost of postage, it is absolutely free to submit an application for this type of visa.

Since the Diversity Visa Lottery is so popular among Ukrainians, we will have another podcast on the subject closer to the actual timeframe to apply for the visas where we will discuss this issue in depth.

The last point I would like to make today, is that immigrating to the United States does not automatically include American citizenship. When you first arrive in the United States, you are a Legal Permanent Resident. That means that you can live and work permanently in the United States for the rest of your life. After a number of years, however, if you desire it, you can apply for citizenship to the United States, with all of the rights and privileges that implies.

This concludes the July edition of "Ask the Consul." I encourage you to e-mail us with any questions that you would like answered in the future. Thank you very much.