Do you have a U.S. employer willing to sponsor — and have they sponsored anyone before?
Employer-sponsored EB-2/EB-3 requires a PERM Labor Certification proving no qualified U.S. worker is available. PERM advertising must run for 30 days minimum, follow strict DOL recruitment requirements (Sunday newspaper, two SWA postings, three additional steps for professional roles), and be filed within 180 days of recruitment completion. The DOL audit rate is ~25% and an audit adds 6–14 months. Smaller employers without prior PERM experience routinely make recruitment errors that void the entire filing.
Context & Examples
Real example — Sacramento medical clinic. A small clinic wanted to sponsor their head physician (Brazilian, J-1 waiver completed). We ran the PERM with parallel recruitment for the exact job duties as posted, gathered every applicant resume, conducted documented good-faith interviews of two U.S. applicants and rejected them with on-the-record lawful job-related reasons (one lacked board certification; one wanted 30% more salary than the prevailing wage). PERM certified without audit in 8 months. I-140/I-485 concurrent. Green card 16 months total.
Horror story — same clinic, prior attempt by an HR generalist. Three years earlier the same clinic tried PERM pro se for a different physician. They reused an old job ad, the ad omitted the geographic location, the SWA posting was 28 days instead of 30, and the recruitment report did not document why a U.S. applicant was rejected. DOL denied at audit. The physician returned to Brazil with $40K in legal/recruitment costs sunk and no green card.
Why an attorney is essential: PERM is strict liability — there are no second chances on procedural defects. We have a 6-step audit-proofing protocol that has cleared every PERM we've filed in the last 8 years.
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