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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

#121

Hi Peter. I am on H-1B. What are the legal source of revenues other than the salary I receive from my employer (H-1B sponsor)? Is it ok to have capital gains, dividends, interests?

These can be permissible if they are given to other employees in similar positions and don't transform you from an employee to an owner/self-petitioner.

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

#122
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's assume I don't trust what you're saying at face value. What are some examples or sources?

The Disney debacle cost Infosys $69 million, and they're included in that 3-4% number I quoted if that's what you're thinking of.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 classifi…

Thanks Peter! So then would you suggest to wait on (fingers crossed) getting an H1-B from an employer and then transferring to the new startup?

Not necessarily because the law is clear that a minority non-controlling interest is not a bar to TN classification (and where the law is on your side, it's usually worth pursuing/arguing).

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

#124

Hey Peter, thanks for this. Have you heard about SimpleCitizen? ( https://simplecitizen.com/ ) My wife and I were recently married and are currently considering this for getting her green card. Any thoughts?

Try the forums at visa journey.com as I used it myself in the past. If you are a citizen and your spouse entered legally then the process is quite straightforward.

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

#127
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…

I have never seen an H1B job posting that was truly for "skilled labor that an employer couldn't find a citizen for."

However I _have_ seen H1B postings so specific that one might wonder if the only missing information was the first and last name of the "chosen one" along with his birthdate, his second son's middle name and a traced outline of the birthmark on the back of his left shoulder.

In all instances the candidate had been chosen _before_ the job was posted publicly in the US. In some cases the chosen one was a relative of the person choosing, in others a crony of the one choosing.

The only reason for the US job posting was to bring in the requisite number of unsuspecting US citizen applicants who were then _always_ rejected.

So, using your number, if we banned all H-1Bs today, we would effectively be opening approximately half a million jobs for talented US citizen workers and selling half a million one-way tickets on boats or planes to other countries.

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

#130

Hi Peter, I've received my green card through my sponsor company 2 months ago. (It's a highly reputable fortune 100 company and I am building their core web product) And I have a project that's getting traction and really want to leave the company and commit full time to it. But everything on the web says I need to wait at least 6 months before leaving the company after I receive green card, otherwise they can kick m…

Similar question here!

No, you are not stuck at all. As long as your intent - and the intent of your employer - at the time that your green card application was filed was to work for the company in the sponsored position, you can leave at any time after getting your green card.
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