Leanne,

MSU prepares H1B visa applications in-house. The departments always pay the fraud and prevention fee of $500, when applicable, and sometimes will choose to pay the H1B processing fee of $325 and premium processing fee $1,225.

For green cards, MSU uses outside legal counsel and pays the fees associated with the labor certification; however, the employee is responsible for paying the rest of the fees for the PR. 

Green card sponsorship is typically done for faculty mostly.  In addition, to apply and be considered for tenure requires that an employee be a citizen of the United States or be a permanent resident, or have begun the permanent residence process (verification required) in order to be eligible for permanent employment in this country. 

Juli

>>> Leanne Fuller <[log in to unmask]> 1/17/2012 5:52 PM >>>

Colleagues,

Hope you all are doing well.  I have an inquiry as to what your policies and/or guidelines are in relation to covering the costs associated with H1-b visa applications or transfers and ultimately green cards.  As a college and experiment station, we have always paid the labor portion of the filing fee for H1-b which is running us about $825 per filing.  The green card is costing approximately $1800 for the required amount.  We have also been limited by our Payment and Procurement Office to paying for anything above the required amounts with state funds (which on our campus is interpreted as ALL accounts except gift accounts).

I am interested in seeing what each of you do in regards to what you commit to pay for visa filings, whether it is faculty or staff.  If you have separate practices/policies for faculty and staff, please let me know that also. 

Any information you could share information on this topic would be greatly appreciated.  I hope it will get us to the development of a policy.

Thanks a lot, Leanne