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Does anyone have experience or knowledge of federal government hiring of non-Americans?

I graduated from HYS, had a top appellate clerkship, and am working in big law currently. It's my dream to work for the federal government, but I don't have a green card and am working on a work visa for non-Americans.

Recently, an acquaintance who was in a similar situation started working at the DOJ's Beijing office. I kept trying to find out how she got hired given the non-American hiring restrictions, but she's being very hush-hush about the details.I also hear there is a national interest waiver for non-American hires, but I have zero experience with how that works.

Any information, even rumors of others' stories, would be helpful!

Anonymous User wrote:Does anyone have experience or knowledge of federal government hiring of non-Americans?

I graduated from HYS, had a top appellate clerkship, and am working in big law currently. It's my dream to work for the federal government, but I don't have a green card and am working on a work visa for non-Americans.

Recently, an acquaintance who was in a similar situation started working at the DOJ's Beijing office. I kept trying to find out how she got hired given the non-American hiring restrictions, but she's being very hush-hush about the details.I also hear there is a national interest waiver for non-American hires, but I have zero experience with how that works.

Any information, even rumors of others' stories, would be helpful!

Obviously the Federal Government employs a large number of overseas nationals - in overseas territories. It's not clear from your post if that's your goal or if you're aiming to be hired by the Feds in the US. Even with a Green Card that's very unlikely.

It's definitely not that hard to get hired by the federal government with top credentials. I have plenty of American classmates who are now working for the federal government and were recently hired. My immigration status is the only major hurdle for me, and it's the same for plenty of my non-Americans friends who graduated from top law schools with good credentials.

It might be hard though, if you went to UVA.

Anonymous User wrote:It's definitely not that hard to get hired by the federal government with top credentials. I have plenty of American classmates who are now working for the federal government and were recently hired. My immigration status is the only major hurdle for me, and it's the same for plenty of my non-Americans friends who graduated from top law schools with good credentials.

It might be hard though, if you went to UVA.

Well, this is totally inappropriate. Don't use anon to be a dick about people's schools again, or you'll get outed regardless of what you've posted about yourself.

Also the post you reply do didn't claim it was hard for Americans to get hired (though really, people who have "top credentials" have an easier time getting hired anywhere). They said that it's very unlikely that you'll get hired even with a green card. That's about citizenship requirements, not credentials.

I actually don't know of any US-based federal attorney job that hires non-citizens (there may be some, but the ones I know of don't). If you're talking about working for the US overseas, like the above poster, I don't know.

Anonymous User wrote:It's definitely not that hard to get hired by the federal government with top credentials. I have plenty of American classmates who are now working for the federal government and were recently hired. My immigration status is the only major hurdle for me, and it's the same for plenty of my non-Americans friends who graduated from top law schools with good credentials.

It might be hard though, if you went to UVA.

That was, in essence, the point of my reply. It IS hard to be hired by the federal government if you are a non-citizen. A green card doesn't make you a citizen, citizenship does.

Your friends being hired don't change anything if they have US citizenship and you don't.

As for the dig at UVA, what on earth was the purpose of that? 25-30% of the class for each of the past three years has taken government employment or a judicial clerkship.

Anonymous User wrote: had a top appellate clerkship

I thought you couldn't get clerkships if you weren't a citizen. I'm curious about this.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: had a top appellate clerkship

I thought you couldn't get clerkships if you weren't a citizen. I'm curious about this.

You can get them, you just can't get paid for them. There's also supposed to be an option for getting paid if you have a green card/will be applying for citizenship as soon as you're eligible, though I don't know much about how that works in practice. It sounds like that wouldn't apply here but maybe it does.

(Oh, and you can get paid in Alaska/Hawaii/the various non-mainland territories, though most people wouldn't call them "top," to the extent that matters.)

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: had a top appellate clerkship

I thought you couldn't get clerkships if you weren't a citizen. I'm curious about this.

You can get them, you just can't get paid for them. There's also supposed to be an option for getting paid if you have a green card/will be applying for citizenship as soon as you're eligible, though I don't know much about how that works in practice. It sounds like that wouldn't apply here but maybe it does.

Off topic since this doesn't apply to OP:
It's very judge dependent, and in my experience judges aren't that aware of it. That being said I managed to get an offer under those conditions so it's possible.