When is is good time to leave a job for another while GC is pending?

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There is a great deal of confusion concerning changing jobs. Generally speaking, if someone leaves the job for which their I-140 petition was approved, before they immigrate to the United States, they lose their eligibility to immigrate. Changing jobs includes receiving a promotion with the same employer. If the job changes in any way from the one specified in the I-140, the prospective immigrant loses his or her eligibility to immigrate on the basis of the approved I-140.

Understanding this, it is still possible to change jobs and even employers and still remain eligible to immigrate - provided certain conditions are met. In 2000, Congress passed the The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act. This legislation allows certain qualified prospective immigrants to change jobs or employers and retain their eligibility. This is known as I-140 portability and is discussed at length elsewhere on this site. If an applicant qualifies for AC21 I-140 portability, then he or she may change jobs without concern, provided the applicant continues to work in the same or similar occupational classification.

For those not yet eligible to invoke AC21 portability, there are two other issues that need to be considered when contemplating a job change.

If the applicant has received an I-140 approval, then the applicant may change jobs and retain the priority date established by the I-140 approval. For more information about this, click here. It doesn't matter if the first I-140 was approved for the EB3 category and the prospective immigrant now wishes to gain EB2 classification, the priority date is portable.

If the applicant has not received an I-140 approval, however, the priority date is not portable. If the petitioning employer is kind enough to allow it to proceed to completion, then the date becomes portable. Failing that, however, the employee must start over and may not even keep the filing date of the old PERM application.

Under no circumstances is a PERM application portable, except in the context of AC21 I-140 portability.