That office determines whether or not the University is offering prevailing wages and working conditions for the position, checks the completeness of the application, and forwards the application to the Regional Certifying Officer in the Denver office of the U.S. Department of Labor. The Certifying Officer makes the decision and notifies us. This procedure usually takes about three months, occasionally longer. Once the Department of Labor has approved the application for labor certification, the University can petition the Immigration and Naturalization Service on behalf of the alien. This part of the process is called a second preference petition.
All green cards are the same, all confer the same benefits.
Only the paths to those green cards are different. The University often hires individuals who have completed all the requirements for their Ph.D. degree except for submission of their dissertation. The completion of the dissertation is sometimes shuffled to the back of the scholar's priorities during his or her first year of teaching or research. Time passes and the degree isn't awarded as promptly as everyone might have wished. While the department may allow the scholar some leeway in this regard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is not so open-minded.