Anyone wishing to live and/or work in the U. S. permanently requires an immigrant visa before traveling to the United States.

The immigrant visa package is surrendered to an immigration inspector at the port of entry, at which time, the holder will be given forms required to complete an application for a Permanent Resident Card, commonly known as a "Green Card". That card will normally be mailed to the address of the applicant's final destination in the United States and takes approximately six to twelve months to process. Persons admitted into the United States as Legal Permanent Residents or Conditional Permanent Residents require no further authorization from USCIS in order to seek employment.

Legal Permanent Residents will maintain their status provided they do not remain outside the U.S. for longer than one year (or two years if holding a DHS-authorized Re-entry Permit) and they maintain a bona fide domicile in the United States during the period they are outside the country.

It is difficult to predict how long the processing of an individual case may take. Some visa Petitions are subject to numerical limitations and may not be processed for several years. In some cases, an applicant may be subject to an ineligibility, or have previous problems with law enforcement or immigration authorities, and will require a waiver before the case can be processed to completion. In some cases, it can take up to one year for a waiver application to be processed by DHS. On average, however, it takes 4 to 6 months for a case to be processed at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas once we receive the case from the National Visa Center.

Intending immigrants should always enter the U.S. on an immigrant visa. While it is true that some people who enter the U.S. on non-immigrant visas do change their status to legal permanent resident, it is an expensive, time consuming, and a generally difficult process. Thus, it is advisable to obtain your immigrant visa overseas.

We strongly encourage U.S. Citizens based in Venezuela to file an immigrant visa Petition for spouses and children if there is any possibility of wanting to reside in the United States at a future date. The advantage to this is that if you are unexpectedly transferred or a family emergency requires you to return to the U.S., the petition is already on file and your spouse can stay behind and complete the immigrant visa application process without your presence.

Your spouse should NOT prepare for the personal interview and apply for the actual immigrant visa until you are ready to move back to the U.S. Many of the documents needed to obtain the immigrant visa, such as medical exam results and police certificates, can expire. Thus, your spouse would have to obtain the documents again at additional expense closer to the time he or she plans to actually immigrate.

Upon entering the United States on an immigrant visa you will require no further authorization from the Department of Homeland Security to work. If you are seeking to immigrate on the basis of an offer of employment, you will require a U.S. based employer to file an immigrant visa petition on your behalf with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

There is no United States Government office in Venezuela which furnishes information concerning available jobs in the United States. While there are federally supported employment offices throughout the United States, those offices are not authorized to answer inquiries from overseas.

If you belong to a professional or trade organization in Venezuela, they may have counterpart organizations in the U.S. to whom you could inquire about job opportunities. There are employment agencies in Venezuela providing assistance in finding jobs in the United States, however; we have no detailed information on their services and cannot advise you on their merit. They have no connection with the United States Government.

An immigrant can become an American citizen through naturalization by living in the United States for a specified period, usually five years and after passing a naturalization examination. However, there is no requirement that an immigrant becomes a citizen and he/she is free to live in the United States as long as he/she wishes regardless of his/her citizenship, so long as he/she abides by the laws of the land. For more information on how to become a U.S. citizen, visit the USCIS website.

By law, each immigrant or refugee admitted to the United States must obtain a Social Security number. Social Security numbers are required to work in the U.S., to open a bank account, to pay taxes and for many other purposes. An application for a Social Security number should be made to the local Social Security Office in the area where the immigrant will reside after his/her arrival in the United States. See their website for further information.

As long as traveling to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas is not too great a cost or burden, you should appear for your interview on the scheduled date with the documents you have already and, if necessary, the interviewing officer will refuse your case temporarily under Section 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This will allow you to return to the Embassy at a later date along with the documents you were missing.

With few exceptions, a person born in the United States has a claim to U.S. citizenship. Persons born in countries other than the U.S. may have a claim, under United States law, to U.S. nationality if:

• either parent was born or naturalized in the U.S., or
• either parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of applicant's birth.

Any applicant believing he or she may have a claim to U.S. citizenship should not apply for a visa until his or her citizenship has been determined by the American Citizens Services Unit.