Two things must hold. The employee must be eligible for lawful permanent residence and admissible, with a determination under EB-1 or EB-2 that is subject to visa availability. The company must accept the corporate figures — a nonrefundable US$15,000 per employee and a US$2 million gift — and be willing to commit them before knowing the outcome.
Screen the candidate before the board paper
Have the employee's immigration history reviewed by a qualified adviser before the sponsorship goes for approval. Prior refusals, an overstay, a criminal matter, or a documentation gap can end a case that the company has already funded, and the US$15,000 fee is not returned. A short confidential review costs a fraction of the commitment and gives the approving committee something firmer than an assumption that the candidate will pass vetting.
Two points belong in that board paper alongside the screening. Money moves one way here, from the applicant to the U.S. government, and it confers no classification and cures no ground of inadmissibility, so a company signing off the spend is paying for a process rather than for an outcome.
And a determination must still be made under EB-1 or EB-2 and remains subject to visa availability, which means the substantive question — whether this employee's record could support one of those categories — is the one the committee should be asking, not whether the budget is available. Confirm current program terms and figures against official sources rather than a summary prepared for another purpose, since terms and amounts are not fixed features of the world. Hypothetical example: a company preparing to sponsor a chip verification lead asks its adviser to state in one page which category the employee's record could support and what evidence would establish it, and that page changes the recommendation more than any part of the cost analysis does.