F-1 Student Directly Filing for a Green Card

Submitted by Chief Editor on Mar 14th 2017

I am currently working as a research fellow on F-1 OPT and my employer is considering filing for EB-1. My question is, can the transition be done from F-1 OPT to EB-1 and in case my application does not go through can I come back to renew my F-1 status to continue a Ph.D. in the future?

PDF version

ANSWER:

There is nothing in law that stops an F-1 student from directly filing for a green card. But, exhibiting immigrant intent while on an F-1 visa can raise some issues that should be discussed and planned for with your lawyers.

Nonimmigrant Visas:

F-1 Visa

General Nonimmigrant Visa

Green Card:

EB1 Green Card

Unless the context shows otherwise, all answers here were provided by Rajiv and were compiled and reported by our editorial team from comments and blog on immigration.com

Add new comment

Your name

Subject

Comment *

More information about text formats

Text format

WYSIWYG

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Global tokens will be replaced with their respective token values (e.g. [site:name] or [current-page:title]).

Filtered HTML

Use [fn]...[/fn] (or <fn>...</fn>) to insert automatically numbered footnotes.
No HTML tags allowed.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
You may post PHP code. You should include <?php ?> tags.
You may insert a link to a defined site with [link: title].
Tags allowed: a, em, strong, cite, code, ol, ul, li, dl, dt, dd
Typographic refinements will be added.
[faq] or [faq:123,questions_inline,categories_inline] - insert FAQ content based on the optional category, question style and category style.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <p> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><style>
Global tokens will be replaced with their respective token values (e.g. [site:name] or [current-page:title]).

Full HTML

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Global tokens will be replaced with their respective token values (e.g. [site:name] or [current-page:title]).

full_html

Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Global tokens will be replaced with their respective token values (e.g. [site:name] or [current-page:title]).

filtered_html

Use [fn]...[/fn] (or <fn>...</fn>) to insert automatically numbered footnotes.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
No HTML tags allowed.
[faq] or [faq:123,questions_inline,categories_inline] - insert FAQ content based on the optional category, question style and category style.
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Tags allowed: a, em, strong, cite, code, ol, ul, li, dl, dt, dd
You may post PHP code. You should include <?php ?> tags.
Global tokens will be replaced with their respective token values (e.g. [site:name] or [current-page:title]).
Typographic refinements will be added.
You may insert a link to a defined site with [link: title].