Hello,

I worked in Germany for about 2 years, with GC program. I left my company beginning of this year and my written work permit was until Feb-2004 (which should normally be 2007, taking into account the 5 year limit).

From the time I left the company until now, I have been registered to Arbeitsamt, receiving money for unemployment.

Now I found a new job (in Nürnberg) and my company applied for me to AA; but received a strange answer. AA says that because GC will not be available, I am not able to receive further work permit, although I have about 3 more years of time till the end of 5 year limit. I think this should not be the case because I already worked there with GC program.

I actually wanted to asked if anyone knows some laws/descriptions/experience on this. Sometimes the people in AA just don't have any clue about whats new or going on.

Any comments are highly appreciated.

The info that you have got from the AA is false in several aspects. Even if they are right, and they can be right only after 1.1.05, you still have chance to get the visa for the new job. All you have to do is to go immediately, before 31.12.2004 to the Arbeitsamt and make application for the "Zusicherung der Arbeitserlaubnis nach der Verordnung über die Arbeitsgenehmigung für hoch qualifizierte ausländische Fachkräfte
der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (IT-ArGV)". It is also very important to get written confirmation from Arbeitsamt that your application has been placed before 31.12.2004. This is very important.

According to ItArgV they are obliged to give you this Zusicherung or to change your current work permit to the new company without checking the situation on the job market, since you have GC already. Only thing that they are allowed to check is your salary (>38400 Euro) and that you continue to work as IT specialist. Normally I have done this within one day.

If you get "Zusicherung" then AA must give you Visa, also after 1.1.05.

Furthermore, you can complain/ask for help to federal ministry of interior (Bundesinnenministerium), and you can also seek the help of the lawyer. However, federal ministry of interior is long term solution which will prevent that same happens to other GCs.


Good luck and keep us posted what happened.

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I'll apply myself as soon as possible!

1. My previous GC was until Feb-2004. Do you think that it would be a problem?

2. You mention "it is also very important to get written confirmation from Arbeitsamt that your application has been placed before 31.12.2004". When should I receive this paper? Just after I filled the form in?

Regards

Sorry,

just two more additional questions to my previous post:

3. Is there a website/document about what you have mentioned, so that I can take the information with me?

4. Just to make sure everything is OK before going to Nürnberg (which is quite far away from me), could you please be so kind to tell what documents/steps AA asked for to change it?

I am sorry for too many questions but as I have little time left, I would like to make sure of everything as much as possible.

Kind regards and thanks in advance.

1. It must not be a problem. I think that it was until Feb 2004 because your contract was limited. Otherwise they did it without reason (I have heard for such cases, too.) but AFAIK from legal point of view this has no meaning.

2. There is no such paper, they have to write down something or you write down something and somebody in Arbeitsamt signs this or event better you get stempel. This is important only if you encounter some problems later, because in this way you can prove that your application was before 1.1.2005 and in this case they have to apply old law and must not refuse your application.

4. Normally they ask for:
- your employement contract, you can also try if it is not signed yet, in my case this was not a problem
- Stellenbeschreibung (description of your tasks in new company). This has be filled out and by your company. You get this template at Arbeitsamt.
- Zusicherung für Arbeitserlaubnis (most important paper), should be filled in with your personal data and also signed by your company
- Your diplomma translated in german by official translator
- Your passport

3. Links

Go to:

http://www.aufenthaltstitel.de/beschv.html#46

You want to use the following paragraph before 31.12.2004

§ 46 Übergangsregelungen
(1) Die einem Ausländer vor dem 1. Januar 2005 gegebene Zusicherung der Erteilung einer Arbeitsgenehmigung gilt als Zustimmung zur Erteilung eines Aufenthaltstitels fort.

So it means if you got your Zusicherung before 1.1.2005, your must also get Visa after 1.1.05.

This is also valid for you / us:

2) Die einer IT-Fachkraft nach § 6 Abs. 2 der Verordnung über die Arbeitsgenehmigung für hoch qualifizierte Fachkräfte der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie erteilte befristete Arbeitserlaubnis gilt als unbefristete Zustimmung zum Aufenthaltstitel zur Ausübung einer Beschäftigung fort.

It says here thay the LIMITED work permit that you have (for IT sector)is considered as UNLIMITED work permit for the residence permit to excercise "one" employement further.

However this paragraph 2) is valid after 01.01.05 and you can not use it today. Actually, according to what is written there the Ausländeramt should give you the Visa for your new company also after 01.01.05 without any problems and without going to Arbeitsamt once more. What could be that what is meant here that you can only keep your current job, but this exceed my abilities, this is where you have to consult lawyer :-(

Some more links:

http://www.aufenthaltstitel.de/it_argv.html

§ 6 Beantragungszeitraum und Geltungsdauer der Arbeitserlaubnis

(1) Die erstmalige Arbeitserlaubnis kann bis zum 31. Dezember 2004 beantragt werden.

Fassung bis zum 16.07.2003

(2) Die Arbeitserlaubnis wird bei der Erteilung auf die Dauer der Beschäftigung, längstens auf fünf Jahre befristet. Bei mehreren aufeinander folgenden Beschäftigungen dürfen die Arbeitserlaubnisse bis zu einer Gesamtgeltungsdauer von fünf Jahren erteilt werden.

(3) Nach Erteilung der erstmaligen Arbeitserlaubnis können weitere Arbeitserlaubnisse unabhängig von der Arbeitsmarktlage erteilt werden.

The GC is not "dead" afer 01.01.05! So it would mean that all GCs have to leave Germany after 01.01.05 ??? You can ask for FIRST work permit before 31.12.2004. (1) However you are now asking for the successive work permit / visa because you have changed your company. According to (3) it is written that you can get the successive work permit regardless of the current situation on the job market. So because of that they should check only your salary and what kind of work are you doing.

as cedomir says those idiots at AA just have no rights to turn your WP down.
but there are few big question in whole story.
1-was your work permit bis feb 2004 or residence permit.
2-do you have:
"erlischt mit beendigung der tätigkeit"
in residence permit
3-is you RP binded to firma name?
4-This Answer from AA is it written or they told you that? If your firma wrote something formaly and AA wroted back than you can maybe raise Widerspruch and go to court of law.
If nothing was written than do it immidiately.

If your RP is not binded to firma and erlischt nicht and is valid till 2007 then you are lucky and you will handle it easy.
If it is binded than is question what visa did you have this year.
But even than you could find a way out.

Answer quick so that we can give you advice.

If your GC (RP) and WP are till feb than you have problem. You should ask for a new jobsuche visa in Feb.

However, know you MUST FIRST get GC verlängerung at ABH.

DO NOT GO TO AA AND DO NOT ASK ANYTHING AT AA UNTIL YOU GET YOUR GC EXTENDED.

Even if you make a formal Antrag at AA they can turn it down becuse you have no GC anymore.

SO EXTEND YOUR GC FIRST AT AUSLÄNDERBEHÖRDE NEAR YOU AND THEN GO TO AA.

You must be prepared for worst case if your visa was till feb.
In that case you are in De ILLEGALY for 10 months. You could even get POLICE chasing you.

SO ANSWER THESE FEW QUESTIONS QUICK IF YOU INTEND TO KEEP OUT OF JAIL.

AND BEFORE YOU GO TO ABH, GET A LAWYER.

Here is one post from ZAV-IT that is usefull for you also. It says GC is not valid without job - but if you receive ALG then it is valid.

This still does not means you are out of problems, because you should go to ABH and they would give you jobsearch visa.



So einen Brief haben gestern viele GC-Inhaber von ZAV-IT gekriegt (Auszug):


„Für GreenCard-Inhaber die ohne Beschäftigung sind, gelten auch weiterhin die gleichen Bestimmungen: der ursprünglich erteilte Aufenthalt ist ungültig und endet spätestens mit Ablauf der Zahlungsfrist von Arbeitslosengeld.
Gemäß § 46.2 Beschäftigungsverordnung (BeschV) erhalten alle Beschäftigten, die bereits Inhaber einer GreenCard und weiterhin in Beschäftigung sind, ab dem 01.01.05 die unbefristete Zustimmung zum Aufenthaltstitel zur Ausübung der Beschäftigung als IT-Fachkraft. Demnach kann zukünftig nach Ablauf der fünfjährigen Aufenthaltserlaubnis bzw. nach 60monatiger sozialversicherungspflichtiger Beschäftigung in Deutschland und dem Fortbestand des Arbeitsverhältnisses die Niederlassungserlaubnis erteilt werden (§ 9 Niederlassungserlaubnis, Zuwanderungsgesetz).“

Scheint als ob ich Recht hatte?

I am also changing my job from 01.01.2005 . Will this be a problem ? Plz keep updating this thread.

As i heard from some Beamtern and ABH workers, they advise to change jobs before 01.01.2005.

According to them the first 6 months will be disaster doing work for them because most of the tasks that Arbeitsamts are doing at the moment will be transitioned to Ausländerbehördes with 01.01.2005.

Also es tut mir wirklich leid for the people who plan to change jobs in the first few months of the 2005.

Good Luck!

to change job should be much easier than to lose the job.

big problem is that at abh are allways much worse people than at aa, because they are allways in contact with ausländers and lots of them learn quite quick to hate all ausländers because of few that make problems.
beside aa could not send people home but ABH can.
AA did not have any clue about gc when it was new and now zuwg is new and nobody will know how to deal with it. and then combination zuwg-gc, it will be disaster.

for example what happends now when gc is arbeitslos and have visa binded to firma.
than he has practicaly no visa at all and can be send right away and it will happend very often because it is here normal to send people home without a chance to find job and get ALG that he paid for.
Until someone writes again one letter to BMI lots of GC will be send home.

dargin were are you????????????????

if you have wife and kids then they should be litle bit nicer to you and give you more time to search for job.

Thanks a lot for your replies! I just talked with(found) somebody in Nürnberg-AA, and she sounded queit reasonable and told if I can apply till the end of the year there should not be a problem.

Next week I'll try to solve these myself. Just some answers.

1. My WP was until Feb-2004 whereas my RP was until ~Feb-2005.

2. RP has no company name on it. But it mentiones the IT-Fachkraft program dependency.

Wish you a happy Christmas!

Hi Dargin !
I am also changing job from 01. Jan 2005.
So my situation is very also similar to yours. My
work permit and residence permit are valid till end Nov 2005. I have been working here since last 4 years.
When you go to Arbeitsamt could you please also ask them what will happen to people who apply
for a change in Company after Jan 1 2005 or what is the actual procedure for doing so, for old green card holders (which is also your case).
One more thing RP is always tied with your current employer whether its mentiontened or not.
I am also going to Arbeitsamt München this week for processing. I will keep you updated what happens there (not just some wild speculation as some people have written in this forum). By the way could you send me your e-mail ? I would like to contact u directly to know what happens there !


Happy merry christmas !

In some other thread I was "acused" for "Schwarzmahlen=painting everything black" of the relationship GCs <-> ABH. At the time that was not my intention at all, I just wanted that GCs pay atention and be very careful. However, at the time I could not imagine that after 1.1.05 we will have some sort of vacuum where every GC who wants to change his job (because for example somebody else is willing to pay more :-) ) has to postpone or even cancel this because of ABH ? And also, reading this posts - always the same pattern that I have also experienced - at AA people are very polite and nice, at ABH you get completely other kind of treatment.

@dvd: I have read your post carefuly. One normally cannot get Arbeitslosengeld if he has no "jobsuche" visa. I have got ALG for some 20 days :-), so at the time I went first to AA but they sent me then to ABH to get this gray peace of paper ("jobsuche" visa). Then you get ALG, so you are not illegaly in D.

Something else, very important.
1) GC visa is connected to one company. So it is invalid when you change / lose your job. This is ok.
2) You go to AA, and get new Zusicherung, the same way as when you search job first time. This is not logical. If it is so, ok, then I should get another 5 years for new company.
3) In 2002 I change my WP and visa for new company. Also in 2001, my wife did so and also in 2002. Every time the same pattern: Zusicherung, then visa. I had some short and nice discussion with lady in AA because my company did erased "für neueinreisende" from the Zusicherung (on the top of the paper). But she said, noo.. you are all "neueinreisende". Ok, I did not care because I have got all the papers and everything was ok. Then in 2004, I have changed my job again. The same lady sends me the Zusicherung, but she crosses the part where is written that the "zusicherung" is valid as work permit for 3 months. I call her to ask whats this, and she says this time that I have to use Zusicherung, make new Visa and change my yellow workpermit immediately before I start to work. The explanation why: "You have anyway already green card and you are just changing your job, and you are not neueinreisende". I did so, and everything was fine. But different than before.

So now my question: Why, oh why should any GC have problems to change job ? The ItArgV says explicitly you "can" get work permit for new company over and over again, up to 5 years. Probably the guys from info4alien.de would say "can", but not "must" :-) , and there you go, bye-bye green card. I do not get it. And especially I do not get this part where some/most GC visas are just for only one company. To be honest - this is not written anywhere in ItArgV and also it is not written in any publicly available document, and last but not the least: it was not presented so in german TV in 2000 when they were calling IT people to come to Germany. If I knew at the time that it was going to be that way I would probably go to Canada.

Hi cedomir !
I read somewhere in the forum that u have the
stellenbeschreibung and zusicherung forms in pdf format. Could you please send these forms to me in my email address as soon as possible. My email is ptuladhar@gmx.net

Thank u

Hi there!

As I worked in Germany with greencard before, as I understand, if I apply next week to Nürnberg AA, it should not take too long to get the new WP. Even the same day I applied. Am I right?

p_tuladhar, you can contact me through darginmahkum@hotmail.de

Cheers!

Hi Dargin !
I think it should be possible. Just check the timing of Arbeitsamt and ABH before you go. Make sure u have all the documents.
All the best. I am planning to go on Tuesday immediately after I sign my contract.

Cedomir et all,

If i had done what the info4alien.de guys told me("ABHer" as they call themselves), i would have left Germany a long ago and living in a different part of the world possibly.

Thanks god i involved a lawyer instead of doing what they told there.

It is good to read info4alien.de...
but having full trust to what they tell there ?

No way ;)

DvD...

U DA MAN with your postings!

Thanks a million.

wehrli what does it mean U DA MAN

OK dargin
you were lucky.
if you have your PR till Feb 2005 and no Firma in pass and also no:
Erlischt mit ...
in your pass, then there should be no problems.

Allthough some Beamters think that GC is invalid without job even if it id not written in it, but those are seldom.

Do not expect to get WP in one day. last time I waited allmost two months and now it is much much wors because AA has to learn new law (not ZuwG) and new software for it.

2 months?? Wow. But for the second case I think they normally should not check for job market. So I thought it should take less.

-- @dvd: I have read your post carefuly. One normally cannot get Arbeitslosengeld if he has no "jobsuche" visa. I have got ALG for some 20 days , so at the time I went first to AA but they sent me then to ABH to get this gray peace of paper ("jobsuche" visa). Then you get ALG, so you are not illegaly in D.

I had also ALG and no jobsuche visa because my visa is not binded to firma and has no "Erlischt mit..." in it.


-- So now my question: Why, oh why should any GC have problems to change job ? The ItArgV says explicitly you "can" get work permit for new company over and over again, up to 5 years. Probably the guys from info4alien.de would say "can", but not "must" , and there you go, bye-bye green card.


Because ITArgV is not valid after 1.1. nad BeschV is litle bit strange written.
it does not says that GC is valid as a unbefristete visa.
BeschV says that WP is considered as a unbefristete agreement to get visa.

But if one changes job, he can trow his WP in Eimer. And BeschV says nothing about GC specially not about those binded to firma.

I hink that BeschV allows GC to change firma but there are lots of Beamters that think that BeschV allows only to work forever with old WP in same firma. So if you get across one that think so, only god can help you. Or judge at least.

-- 2 months?? Wow. But for the second case I think they normally should not check for job market. So I thought it should take less.

that is true - in theory.
look at post from cedomir.
he talks about frau that first said that he is allways newcomer and she has allways to check if germans are available. later she understud, but some Beamters never understud.

hello,
do they cancel the old GC visa valid for 5 yrs and paste a new visa on ur passport or do they give you a slip to give it to Arbeitsamt??

Hi all !
Today I went to arbeitsamt to change my current employer. They told me that the last date for GC to be issued is 31.12.2004
They told me it was "definitely" possible to change the job after that. But this will be processed by ABH and not by arbeitsamt. They were not sure of the exact procedure but were sure that it was possible.

-- Today I went to arbeitsamt to change my current employer. They told me that the last date for GC to be issued is 31.12.2004
They told me it was "definitely" possible to change the job after that. But this will be processed by ABH and not by arbeitsamt. They were not sure of the exact procedure but were sure that it was possible.


That is correct but you know what people at ABH are like.
First they are not allways informed,
second they do not like us very much.
So my oppinion is, everything is possible.

Dear all,

I went to Nürnberg-AA yesterday and got my work permit without any problems - just in 15 minutes! Next I will try to extend my RP, which I think should not be a problem.

Today I went to Arbeitsamt to change my job. The beamter said that he cannot issue the work permit since it is only for those contract which begins this year (2004). For any contract starting from 2005 one must go to Auslanderbehördnung.
So I will be the first to go there and find out whats the actual procedure and how long it might take ?

Hi p_tuladhar41,

Pls call up the Green card people in Kölln. Mine was a similar case because my contract is starting from next year and therefore AA refused to issue me a WP. Then I called the lady responsible for Green cards in Kölln and she in return promised to speak with the Arbeitsamt..If u go to AB then u will require little more time..Now I do have a WP starting from next year.

Regards,
Amol.

Please take this link with you, maybe it will be of help. Print it on a paper and take it with you.

http://www.aufenthaltstitel.de/it_argv.html

Here, it is clearly stated that (according to section 6) you can apply to GC until 31.12.2004!!!

They just do not want to work.

Hi amolp76,

Do you know the Green card people in Koln. Do you have email address or phone so that I can call them.

try to send antrag for WP per post before 1.1.
if you do it than they must give you everything according to law with GC.

it is question what doyou get after 1.1.
It should be normal RP with WP for IT but with Beamters you never know

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I doubt that they exist from 1st of Jan..