Some immigrants don’t have to worry about their employment at all, outside of making ends meet. Maybe you got a visa as a college student so that you could take classes, or maybe you immigrated to the United States to be reunited with family members who were already living here. The paperwork that allows you entry has nothing to do with whether or not you hold down a job.
But for many immigrants, that job is the key to the entire immigration. The company they work for identified them as a potential source of talent or someone with a special set of skills. When a company offers a job to an immigrant and petitions for them to get a work visa, the government is more likely to grant that visa. The immigrant is then obligated to take the job when they arrive in the United States because they were only given the visa in exchange for filling that position.
What if you lose your job?
This means that immigrants need to be very careful about quitting their jobs or seeking other forms of employment. Even getting fired could be problematic. If the visa says you have to be employed by a certain company or work in a certain industry, and you lose that employment, it could open up the door for deportation.
That doesn’t mean that deportation is a guarantee. There are often legal steps you can take to rectify the situation. You could get a different type of visa, for instance, or adjust your status with a green card. Many employment visas will also give you a grace period. You may have 60 days to find a job that fits with your current visa, allowing you to stay in the United States.
This can all get very complex and you may be worried about your future, so be sure you know what legal steps to take.