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I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

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Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#301

Post by e15ctr0n »

klean92 wrote: post #294
Pyxl101 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's incorrect or out of date about it?

Economy is doing better than in 2013. So many more applicants. So lottery needed. In 2 days in April there are way more applicants than slots. If you apply 1 month later you're way behind, you're not even in the lottery.

USCIS will accept H1B petitions from April 1 to April 5 in 2016.

Those who have advanced degrees from US institutions will be considered to be eligible for the first lottery that will pick 20,000 petitions.

Those with advanced degrees but not picked in the first lottery will be added back to the applicant pool. A second lottery will pick 65,000 petitions.

http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-will-accept-h-1b-petitions-f...

http://www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-completes-h-1b-cap-ra...

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#302

Post by sgrove »

kumarski wrote: post #289
treasuresque wrote: post #286

DO NOT WORK WITH HIM. Can't believe he made it to HN!! He somehow became a thing but I can't stress out enough how much money he had cost me while providing either no service -even declined to work on my first case- or really shitty service, where i ended up writing all docs myself. He does not think out of the box at all or provides any value bigger than digging into Google. He didn't have any plan B or even replied…

Everyone should read this comment above^^ EVERYONE.

The parent comment, or the one stating that this is the parent's first post and asking for more details on the OP's credibility?

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#304

Post by thro1237 »

semerda wrote: post #255
jeevand wrote: post #3

Can founders of a startup who have majority ownership & with appropriate board having the power to fire them sponsor green card through their startup? Founders are currently on H1b with approved I-140. Thank you

I was in the exact position. H1B founder needed to move to a GC. My 6 year H1B renew runway was ending. Peter did all the legal/immigration work for me. Applied for the GC via extraordinary ability (EB1A) context. I must say this was the smoothest immigration experience ever. And I have gone through 2 x E3s & 3 x H1Bs using other lawyers. I wish I knew about Peter earlier. Highly recommend everyone here to work with…

Do you have a Phd? How did you satisfy the requirements of EB1A otherwise?

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#305

Post by winter_blue »

bonobo3000 wrote: post #293
winter_blue wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regard to maintaining legal status: If you get a part-time job H1B petition approved, you can use it to maintain your status. With an H1B visa you just need one job (at all times) to maintain legal status. Part-time H1B petitions allows the employer to specify a range of hours, like 10-20. If you find an employer willing to hire you for 10-20 hours, and file the H1B petition (which costs including attorney fees,…

>For example, in order to be legally employed on an H1B in the "San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA" MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), you must be getting paid at least $98,342 per year or $47.28 per hour. Wow, i had no idea the prevailing wage was that high. Does this mean literally everyone on an H1B in the bay area is making at least $100k/year?! I should have negotiated harder...

Regardless of what H1B visa holders are making, if you are a developer and are making less than $120k in the Bay Area, your employer is seriously ripping you off. If you're a good developer, and can prove that by your work, and communicate that across in an interview, you can quite easily make $150,000 or more in the Bay Area.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics collects data on how much people make in each area of the country, for various O⁕NET job titles/classifications. You can find out how much your peers make using this tool: http://data.bls.gov/oes/

I've uploaded a screenshot of how much software developers in the Bay Area earn: http://imgur.com/R8E1qdZ --it reveals that 90% of developers earn over ~$91k, 75% earn over ~$111k, 50% earn over ~$137k, and 25% over ~$166k, in the San Jose area.

The minimum wage for an H1B employee is based on O⁕NET job classification. If the person is classified under "Software Developers, Applications", they must be paid at least $98,342 in the San Jose area. My title at my company is "Software Engineer" and they classified me under "Software Developers, Applications" while applying for a visa for me.

Unfortunately, the O*NET job title classification system also has other redundant ones like "Computer Programmers" and "Web Developers". The prevailing wages for those are far lower. For example, in the San Jose area, the minimum wage for H1B "Computer Programmers" is ~$51k, and for "Web Developers" it's ~$66k. I can see how unethical companies would exploit that. To be honest, I'm puzzled where the Department of Labor got these prevailing wage numbers from. It almost seems like an error.

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#306

Post by e15ctr0n »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #97
proberts wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal fees aside, the filing fees are $1575 for a company with less than 25 FT employees and $2325 for a company with 25 or more FT employees. These are the fees for regular processing which can take months at present, so premium processing is required for quick decision and this costs an additional $1125.

Thank you! I know that mileage varies, but could you give a ballpark for what legal fees might be for a "plain vanilla" case? At the other end of the spectrum, what are the highest fees you've ever seen from one individual?

An east coast attorney "Jerry C. Chang Law Office, P.C." charges $2,000 as their fee, plus another $800 if USCIS asks for additional information while processing the H1B petition.

http://www.jerrychanglawoffice.com/charge.htm

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#307

Post by morriswong »

How does a startup know if what they are doing is breaking the law or not? Usually ideas are cool until they realized that there might be legal issues that aren't intuitive enough or straight forward to those who does not have a law background.

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#308

Post by thaumasiotes »

mydpy wrote: post #186

As US citizens, how can we help our international friends trying to get H1-B support? It is really hard to watch friends get denied, and I really wish policy makers would admit more very talented people from highly competitive countries. One of my good friends from China is gay and if he goes back home, he could actually be in danger. I feel helpless and I want to do more.

> One of my good friends from China is gay and if he goes back home, he could actually be in danger.

Where's he from? There's no taboo against being gay in China in general. What is the source of this danger?

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#309

Post by cobookman »

treasuresque wrote: post #286

DO NOT WORK WITH HIM. Can't believe he made it to HN!! He somehow became a thing but I can't stress out enough how much money he had cost me while providing either no service -even declined to work on my first case- or really shitty service, where i ended up writing all docs myself. He does not think out of the box at all or provides any value bigger than digging into Google. He didn't have any plan B or even replied…

I personally know this person. And can vouch for the problems this person faced with immigration.

Re: I am Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#310

Post by anarazel »

I think it'd be awesome if somebody with actual clue, and without the primary intent of getting new clients, would start collecting information about the US visa situation at some permanent location.

Looking for information about US Visas on your own right now is made very hard by all the immigration lawyer's homepages. Those mostly seem to contain copied and low quality content. Often with conflicting or outdated information.

Given the obvious desire, by US companies, of hiring non-residents, it seems that there'd be a rather big collective interest in providing quality information.

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