Foreign nationals can come to the United States for the purpose of employment in various temporary (nonimmigrant) and permanent (immigrant) categories.
Employment-Based Immigrant Visas
Foreign nationals can obtain permanent resident status under the following employment-based categories:
 EB-1: Priority workers, a classification subdivided into three categories: persons of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors or researchers, and executives and managers of multinational companies.
EB-2: Professionals holding advanced degrees or persons of exceptional ability in the arts, sciences, or business.
EB-3: Professional workers, skilled and unskilled workers.
EB-4: Religious workers, persons seeking reacquisition of citizenship, returning residents, Panama Canal Treaty employees, commuters from border, retired G-4 officers, certain foreign medical graduates, certain court dependents, and others.
EB-5: Investors, who invest at least $1,000,000 in a new commercial enterprise which employs a minimum of ten U.S. workers. In some areas, the minimum amount is $500,000.
Some of these categories are subject to quotas, and most of them require Labor Certification.
Employment-Based Nonimmigrant Visas
Foreign nationals can obtain temporary (nonimmigrant) status under the following employment-based categories, among others:
Specialty workers (persons holding a baccalaureate or higher coming to perform a job requiring a baccalaureate degree or higher in the alien's field of specialty);
Fashion models;
Temporary agricultural workers;
Temporary non-agricultural workers;
Persons of extraordinary ability;
Religious workers; and
Canadian and Mexican citizens performing professional-level work in the US
Special requirements and opportunities exist in the academic and health care fields, particularly in the cases of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and college professors.
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