I am submitting my I-140 soon but will be changing jobs - will the job change affect my EB-2 NIW approval?

Here’s a post by immigration lawyer Amber Davis on whether changing jobs will affect your EB-2 NIW approval:

Once you get EB-2 NIW you are free to change jobs and perhaps even career trajectory.

Just make sure you actually make progress towards your proposed endeavor now and at the time you file your I-485.

While I personally have yet to see USCIS ask questions about an EB-2 NIW recipient’s job change, I have heard stories of this happening from colleagues. And I caution people about it all the time. You cannot tell USCIS that you plan on carrying out a proposed endeavor that you actually have no intention of pursuing. That’s fraud.

But I do work with people all the time who say, “I’m doing x, but I also want to explore y and z and see where that takes me”. That’s totally fine. You still need to make progress towards x, but x doesn’t need to be your all consuming work. And you can take a break from x to focus on y and z as long as you return to x by the time your priority date becomes current.

Then who knows, maybe you will decide that y is really where you want to focus your career. If you don’t want to go back to x, then you should definitely get a new I-140 approval where you tell the government you are going to do y. Sometimes a new EB-2 NIW petition is required. Or even going back into the employer sponsorship process. But a long waiting period means you have options.

If you do decide to change jobs and just want to make sure that you’re not going to be impacting your future green card application, I would recommend that you consult a lawyer, especially to confirm that you’ll still be able to pursue your proposed endeavor in your new role. Understanding all the implications is important. The takeaway here is that you don’t need to feel stuck in your career once you have an EB-2 NIW approval.

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Interested in EB-1A, EB-2 NIW or O-1? Feel free to reach out to Amber at amber.davis@waypointimmigration.org or via LinkedIn messages.

Interested in profile-building for EB-2 NIW and maximizing your chances of approval? Check out Amber’s course, NIW Ready, which helps those of you who want to build a strong NIW profile in 2-3 months. You’ll also be considered for Amber’s refundable case package, which guarantees a refund of only attorney fees if your case does not get approved. At the end of the course, assuming you do the work, you’ll be ready to file.

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