Originally Posted by
⌐ AV8OR WANNABE
I agree with almost everything you’ve said except when it comes to ERAU "sponsoring green cards" - I'm fairly certain ERAU (and other universities) cannot sponsor a person for a green card. Instead, they'll sponsor the students with time limited F1/M1 or J1 visas which are basically student/training visas that allow students part time “practice jobs” in the field of their studies such as flight instructing in the field of aviation, etc.
I think the people you were talking about who waited 5-7 years or so were foreign student who went through the process on their own (marriage, “green card” lottery, business visa exchanged to green card, etc, etc.) and while they were waiting for their paper work to be squared away they kept flight instructing mainly because the visas they had in effect "locked them" to a specific work place.
Just wanted to clarify that…
What you said about providing new grads with time limited visas is true.
However, ERAU DOES sponsor green cards as well. At least, they have done so in recent history, I don't know if they still do it for a CFI hired today.
My own significant other and probably a dozen others have gotten their green cards this way. What you have to do is work there for a few years, and then they'll sponsor you. My SO started instructing part time as a student (2000), got sponsored after reaching a certain amount of dual given (2004) and just became a permanent resident (2008). The school even had to run an advertisement in the papers for the position before they started the green card process. The way this was explained to me is that obviously the govt isn't going to let any company sponsor a green card for any worker. The company has to basically prove that the type of worker they are looking for is hard to find in the US, which justifies the need to sponsor a foreigner. CFIs are plentiful in the US, but not experienced ones (which is why the school needs you to work there for some time before they'll sponsor you.) Then they need to show that they tried recruiting publicly, which is the reason for running those ads.
All in all, it's a very long and difficult process, but pretty much the only option for some of these foreign guys. What I'm not sure of is why you would choose to take this road if you had other options available to you, as it seems to be the case in Canada.