What Your Employer Must Do in an EB-3 Case

Workers often imagine EB-3 sponsorship as a favor an employer grants with a signature. In reality, sponsorship is a serious legal undertaking with obligations that run for years. Knowing what your employer must do helps you judge whether a sponsor is serious - and spot the ones who are not.

1. Offer a real, permanent, full-time job

The foundation of the case is a bona fide job offer: permanent, full-time work that exists regardless of you. USCIS and DOL both probe this. A position invented to sell sponsorship, or a job description tailored so only you can qualify, can bring the whole case down. The employer must intend to employ you when your green card arrives - even if that is years away.

2. Pay at least the prevailing wage

The employer must offer no less than the wage DOL determines for that occupation in that county. This is a floor, not a target - they may pay more. The commitment is tested twice: on paper during PERM, and financially at the I-140 stage. What it means for you: your offered wage is not negotiable downward below the DOL figure, ever, and any employer suggesting an under-the-table discount on it is committing fraud.

3. Test the labor market honestly

Before filing PERM, the employer must run prescribed recruitment - a state workforce agency job order and additional advertising - and genuinely consider US applicants. They must document every applicant and every lawful, job-related reason for rejection, and keep that file for years in case of an audit. This stage belongs entirely to the employer; your role is only to have provided accurate qualification details.

4. Pay the PERM costs - all of them

By regulation, the employer bears every cost of the labor certification: legal fees, ads, filing. They cannot recover these from you through deductions, deposits or side agreements. (More detail in our guide to who pays for what in an EB-3 case.)

5. Prove ability to pay

From your priority date until you immigrate, the company must be able to show - through tax returns, audited financials or annual reports - that it can pay your offered wage. If it employs you already at that wage, payroll records can do the job. This is why very small or shaky businesses sometimes fail as sponsors despite good intentions: the numbers must be there on paper.

6. File and stand behind the I-140

The employer signs the immigrant petition under penalty of perjury, responds to any requests for evidence, and keeps the offer open through the waiting period. If the company withdraws, is sold or closes, the case can be disrupted - though after the I-140 has been approved for a certain time, your priority date generally survives for a future case.

7. Employ you when you arrive

The system expects you to actually take the job when you immigrate, and the employer to actually give it to you at the promised wage. Neither side signs a fixed-term contract - US employment is generally at-will - but a green card obtained with no intention of the job ever starting looks like fraud to the government.

What a serious sponsor looks like

• Talks openly about timelines measured in years, not weeks.
• Uses a licensed attorney and never asks you to pay PERM costs - and never charges you for the offer itself; nobody legitimate does.
• Puts the offered wage and job duties in writing.

For the wider context of what sponsorship involves for companies, see how US visa sponsorship works.

Red flags that a sponsor is not serious

• They cannot name the attorney or firm handling the case - real sponsors always work with counsel.
• They promise a green card within months, or claim connections that skip steps. The steps cannot be skipped.
• They ask you to fund the PERM, or to accept a wage below the prevailing wage "until the card comes."
• They refuse to put the job title, duties and wage in writing.
• Their business has no visible footprint - no registered address, no tax presence, no employees you can find.

A serious sponsor, by contrast, treats sponsorship as routine hiring with extra paperwork: transparent, documented, unhurried. Many have done it before and will tell you frankly how long their last case took.

This is general information, not legal advice. The employer obligations live in DOL regulations at dol.gov and USCIS policy at uscis.gov.

Serious sponsors are actively searching for workers right now. Create your free profile on Workmerica - free, no credit card, and employers contact you directly.