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I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

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Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#92

Hi Peter, I'm a Canadian citizen with a four year computer science degree. I've gotten a TN work permit twice, with two different companies over the past three years. If I started a company with an American citizen and they opened it up, could they then hire me as a Computer System Analyst? Is there a minimum salary they'd have to pay me (e.g. could I get a TN and still only get paid $10/hour)? Is this a common way f…

I'm not the OP, but as I understand it a founder of a company would be eligible for immigration on an EB-5 visa. From this website ( https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-through-job/gree... ), they would be eligible if they plan to create/preserve 10 jobs and invest $1m (or $500k in a "targeted high employment area". This is pretty similar to most developed nations--provide enough investment money and you can immigrate without much question.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#94
I'm an English programmer working in the UK for a site owned by, via another company, a very large privately owned US company. I have a child and a partner I am not married to. I have no criminal record.

I'm unsettled by the brexit, and am considering a US move - if my company's parent wants to take me on how difficult is the immigration process likely to be?

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#95
post #52

Hey Robert - My Question: What do you think would happen to tech in America if H1b's were done away with and all foreign workers had to leave?

Not Robert (and I defer to anything he has to say) but I teach a class that uses the LCA [H-1B] visa application database as a test dataset. If you banned all H-1Bs today, you would effectively be losing approximately half a million talented workers. Now, some would like to argue that this would "free up" half a million jobs for U.S. citizens, but keep in mind that the H-1B is for skilled labor that an employer could…

> but keep in mind that the H-1B is for skilled labor that an employer couldn't find a citizen for at a price they were willing to pay

Trust me, there are a lot of abuses of the H1B program from "main stream" tech companies.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#96

Hi Peter, First of all, thank you very much for doing this. My questions are about the USA Diversity Lottery ( https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ ), as I rarely see any discussions about it: - Out of all the people you have seen who obtained a green card, roughly what is the percentage of them getting it through the lottery? - Roughly how much time and money would the process cost? (I would assume it's similar to the ~…

I recommend browsing official DV statistics [1] to see more detailed data. Unfortunately, there are only lotteries which has ended.

[1]: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/immigrate/diversit...

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#97
post #67

Hi Peter, I'm a Canadian citizen with a four year computer science degree. I've gotten a TN work permit twice, with two different companies over the past three years. If I started a company with an American citizen and they opened it up, could they then hire me as a Computer System Analyst? Is there a minimum salary they'd have to pay me (e.g. could I get a TN and still only get paid $10/hour)? Is this a common way f…

Also curious about this.

Excellent and important issue. Ownership in and of itself is not a bar to TN classification - to be a bar the ownership is supposed to rise to the level of controlling - but USCBP (at the "border") and even USCIS sometimes (and more and more) take the position that it is or conclude that if one is a founder or has an ownership interest, one is a "manager" and not an "engineer" and therefore ineligible for TN classification because there's no NAFTA occupation for managers.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#98

You are not relevant anymore, there are not a lot of stupid guys to pay you and 3500 for a signel bedroom in that bug infested thing you call Silicon Valley. We are waaay smarter to avoid parasites like you.

I don't know anything about this topic, but I do know that this is probably not an appropriate response on HN.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#99

Hi Peter, First of all, thank you very much for doing this. My questions are about the USA Diversity Lottery ( https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ ), as I rarely see any discussions about it: - Out of all the people you have seen who obtained a green card, roughly what is the percentage of them getting it through the lottery? - Roughly how much time and money would the process cost? (I would assume it's similar to the ~…

In case it's helpful: we have family friends who came on a diversity visa from Albania, and it cost them much less than that. Somewhere around $1500-$2000, with processing time <1 year. The lottery entry has no fee, and, once selected, the various visa fees added up to about $500/person. Their only other expenses were going around getting certified copies of documents, and paying a local lawyer to double-check things.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#100
post #98

You are not relevant anymore, there are not a lot of stupid guys to pay you and 3500 for a signel bedroom in that bug infested thing you call Silicon Valley. We are waaay smarter to avoid parasites like you.

I don't know anything about this topic, but I do know that this is probably not an appropriate response on HN.

It is the perfect response to anything that starts with "I am Superman..."

You may or may not agree, I do not care.

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