Every year, thousands of people apply for a work visa to live and work in the United States.
United. If the goals are the same, the motives, on the other hand, can be quite different. See the story of Bruno Lima, a pilot for an airline in the Middle East, who is at the end of the process to achieve the EB2 - NIW.
“I am an airline pilot, I have worked for a company in the Middle East for 15 years. Before, in Brazil, I flew with Varig. We had been living abroad for 11 years, when we had the idea of traveling to the United States. I have three children: a daughter from a first marriage, Bruna, and two others, twins, Caio and Theo, from my second marriage. One of my sons, Theo, who was 2 years old or so, started to show some symptoms of autism. Still in the Middle East, we looked for assistance, therapies, anything that could help him, but we thought it was a little restricted for his case specifically. So, we started to search around the world where would be the best place, where we could provide the necessary assistance and we arrived in the United States, a country that is a reference in terms of research and therapies for autism.
Thus, we opted for the choice of temporarily living in the United States as a student and companions, since my wife was intending to continue her studies in the country. So, in 2017, she entered the country, together with my children, on a student visa: she entered with F1 and they, dependent on her, entered with F2. We chose Florida, where we found a fantastic school and therapy center, in a city called Jupiter, located in the south of the state, the region where my wife studies and where Theo is enrolled, studies and has therapy sessions to this day. Only we had a problem, I couldn't stay with them since my job was still in the Middle East and I wasn't allowed to work in the United States. We ended up having to separate the family.
Until then, the family was separated, me in the Middle East and my wife with my two children here in the United States. Whenever I managed to scrape together some time off, I would come over for a few days, a week. As time went by, it became difficult to keep up with this routine. So I decided to start the professional immigration visa application process based on my qualifications as a commercial pilot.
During the conversation with a friend from the course my wife was taking, a conversation arose about why we didn't try a work visa. My wife explained that she did not have an expectation of applying for a Green Card in our situation because she needed an employer here in the United States. He then said that this possibility existed through a work visa, which would be EB2, as long as the work plans in the United States were within the country's national interest.
The assembly of the process requires the collection of various personal and professional documents, especially documents proving your specialty. I have experience in flight instruction, training management, I had the opportunity to fly in two different fleets in this company. In the end, all of this contributed to enriching my resume and, consequently, my immigration process to the United States. It also helped that I was qualified by the FAA, which is the civil aviation regulatory body in the United States.
In addition to these documents, I also had to request other documents such as reference letters from qualified professionals in my area and, luckily, I still keep in touch with colleagues, such as the operations director at the time I worked at Varig. Coincidentally he was also flying in the same company at the time and very kindly provided one of these letters of reference. As I don't have a very large variety of companies in my career, this ended up helping me to get references from all these companies quickly.
Then it was necessary to update and translate these documents. As three quarters of the companies I worked for are international, practically all my documents were already in English. This collection of documentation took about 8 months, along with the making of the process itself. I had the approval of my qualification for the EB2 visa within the American interest on February 4th and now I am waiting for the last phase, the interview, so that my family and I can receive the immigration visa and become residents of the United States.”