Alien Employment Certification does not give the beneficiary (prospective alien employee) any right to work in the United States or to remain here. If approved, however, it can be used in combination with an I-140 Immigrant Visa Petition to request that the INS recognize an alien beneficiary as initially qualified for an immigrant visa.

After Alien Employment Certification is granted, an I-140 Immigrant Visa Petition is filed with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). An approved Immigrant Visa Petition can be used to secure an immigrant visa for the individual.

The following are the steps involved in applying for permanent residence based on employment:

1) U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) forms are filed with the State Employment Service Agency.

2) When the forms are received, the State Employment Service Agency records the date of receipt and thereby creates a "priority date."

3) The State Employment Service Agency also reviews the forms. If the forms are properly completed and the information meets the required criteria, the applying employer will be told to begin the recruitment process. If the State Employment Service Agency has questions, the forms will be returned for additions and/or corrections.

4) The employer will begin the recruitment process involving the following steps:

• A blind advertisement for the position will be placed in a national professional publication for one issue or a newspaper for three days. A blind ad is one where the prospective employees responding to the ad do not know the name and address of the employer. Prospective employees responding to the ad are referred to the State Employment Service Agency. They are not referred directly to the employer.
• A position availability notice is also placed in the State Employment Service Agency's Job Service and in the national job data bank found on the web for 30 days.
• The employer must also post an internal position availability notice at the employer's place of business for 10 consecutive days.

The recruitment period is considered to be the thirty day period beginning on the day the ad first appears in the professional publication or newspaper.

5) The employer will be sent any applicants resumes from the State Employment Service Agency which are received as a result of the blind ad. The employer must either indicate clearly why that person is not qualified, either from the resume alone if it is evident, or through an interview and selection process. As part of this process, the employer is allowed to inquire about the legal status of the applicant in the United States (i.e. if s/he is an American worker or not). If the individual applying through the blind ad is a fully qualified American worker, s/he must be offered the position and hired over the foreign national.

The employer must report the results of the contacts with the respondents to the blind ad, as well as the results of the applicants for the position who responded to the internal posting to the State Employment Service Agency. The employer must state specifically why each U.S. worker was not hired for the position.

6) The State Employment Service Agency will send all related materials including the recruitment results to the Regional Office of the U.S. DOL.

7) The Certifying Officer at the Regional DOL Office reviews all the material. If the Certifying Officer finds that all procedures were correctly followed and no qualified U.S. worker is available for the position, the position will be certified.

If the certifying officer intends to deny the application, a "Notice of Findings" will be sent indicating the intention to deny and the reasons. The Employer is then given the opportunity to address any issues raised by the Certifying Officer.

8) The employer then uses the approved labor certification to file the I-140 Immigrant Visa Petition.

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