Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series in which we introduce a variety of topics that looks to educate and deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. Accordingly, this blog is titled “Eligibility Requirements to Adjust Status” and is Part III of our series on “Employment-Based Adjustment of Status.” In Part II, we mentioned that usually, an employee is required to complete the final step in obtaining permanent resident status in the U.S. as soon as an immigrant visa becomes available (currently, many employment-based visa categories have varied waiting periods) and after the employee has been classified under the appropriate immigrant visa category by the employer

As a continuation of this series, this blog focuses on the “Eligibility Requirements to Adjust Status,” a key employment-based AOS issue worth noting for every employer.

Eligibility Requirements to Adjust Status

Unless they are expressly excluded from doing so, individuals are, once they satisfy the prerequisites discussed in the previous blog, eligible to have their status adjusted to that of a permanent resident of the U.S. However, pursuant to different statutes of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), those who are not included in eligibility include:

  • A foreign national who is subject to removal from the United States for participating in terrorist activity as codified under INA § 212(a)(3)
  • Individuals who have persistently failed to maintain lawful status since being allowed into the U.S.
  • Foreign nationals who are not in a lawful nonimmigrant status but seeking adjustment of status to that of an immigrant under INA § 203(b)
  • Foreign nationals who are deportable under INA § 237(a)(4)(B)
  • Foreign nationals who, because of acting as informants of terrorist or criminal activity, have been admitted in S nonimmigrant classification
  • Foreign nationals who, except for the spouse of a U.S. citizen, have been admitted under the Visa Waiver Program
  • Foreign nationals who have been admitted in transit without a visa
  • Individuals who, before filing the adjustment application, have ever accepted unauthorized employment
  • Individuals who, pursuant to Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 245(c)(1), are nonimmigrant crew persons.

Additionally, the USCIS provides for a number of health-related grounds of inadmissibility under which certain foreign nationals who are ineligible to adjust status. Examples of these grounds are (1) drug addiction or abuse, (2) a mental or physical disorder with related harmful behavior, (3) failure of a foreign national to show evidence of required vaccinations, and (4) communicable disease of significance to public health. Notably, immigration counsels should refer to volumes 7 and 8 of the USCIS Policy Manuals, which encompass two key policy manuals on adjustment of status available on USCIS website. Accordingly, once a priority date becomes available, employers should consider filing applications for permanent residence with the appropriate offices of the USCIS.

In Part IV of this series, we shall move the discussion forward by hammering on “Possible Alternatives If Ineligible to Adjust,” another fundamental aspect of employment-based adjustment of status (AOS).

In the meantime, stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.