Over the years, several laws have been passed covering special categories of immigrants who qualify for a Green card.  The most common special immigrant category currently includes:

• Self-Petitioning Battered or Abused Spouse or Child of a US Citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident
• Refugees & Asylum Seekers
• Special Immigrant Religious Worker:  any person who for the past two years has been a member of a religious denomination which has a bona fide nonprofit religious organization in the United States and who has been carrying on as a minister of that denomination or in a professional capacity in a religious vocation or occupation for that organization or in a religious vocation or occupation for the organization or its nonprofit affiliate continuously for the last two years and seeks to enter the US to work solely in that capacity.

The most recent special immigrant categories added for Iraqi and Afghan workers include:

• Afghanistan or Iraq National Supporting US Armed Forces as a Translator
• Iraq National who was employed by or on behalf of the US Government in Iraq

Other special immigrant categories include:

• Amerasian: any person who is 18 or older, including the alien, or a US corporation may file this petition for a beneficiary who was born in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea, or Thailand after December 31, 1950 and before October 22, 1982, and was fathered by a US Citizen.
• Widow/Widower of a US Citizen: anyone who was married for at least two years to a US citizen who is now deceased and who was a US citizen at the time of death; citizen spouse’s death was less than two years ago; was not legally separated from citizen spouse at time of death; and have not remarried.
• Special Immigrant Juvenile: anyone who is unmarried and less than 21 years old, has been declared a dependent upon a juvenile court in the US, and has been the subject of administrative or judicial proceedings in which it was determined that it would not be in the juvenile’s best interest to return to his country of nationality.
• Special Immigrant based on employment with the Panama Canal Company
• Special Immigrant Physician:  anyone who graduated from a medical school or qualified to practice medicine in a foreign state, was fully and permanently licensed to practice medicine in a state in the United States on January 9, 1978 and was practicing medicine in a State on that date, entered the US as an “H” or “J” nonimmigrant before January 9, 1978, and has been continuously present in the US and continuously engaged in the practice or study of medicine since the date of such entry.
• Special Immigrant International Organization Employee or family member
• Armed Forces Member

Those who have an approved I-360 special immigrant petition may be eligible to file for adjustment of status to a permanent resident if they are currently residing inside the United States or to apply for consular processing to receive permanent residence status at the US Embassy where they are residing.