Hi Peter, thanks for doing this. I just want to say Thank you for engaging in this kind of discussion. It benefits all of us.
I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
251–260 of 291 posts
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#252I am an Australian nation and wondering if you know of any companies that sponsor under the E3 visa in Silicon Valley?
I'm an Australian working in CA at a tech startup. Lmk if you have any q's about the E3. Tldr of it is that it's really easy to get if you have an offer of employment. So easy you shouldn't need a lawyer, which my company found weird because they're used to the complexities of the H1b.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
thanks.. cofounder route doesn't pan out for several reasons. All cofounder I want to work with are on H1B. And the last time I tried a citizen as cofounder they screw you for being on visa. Same as how big giant companies do just more directly. Anyway, how does one demonstrate they have extraordinary ability for O-1 when everyone on the H1 list has a masters and been an engineer for a while? Any examples of how peop…
Maybe try doing extraordinary things ?
@maverick how about you try contributing something meaningful to this thread?
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#254Hi Peter, if I marry my girlfriend who is from the USA how long do I have to wait until I can work in the US? Thank you
I'm not the expert (although I did marry a US citizen...) but I understand the answer is "pretty much immediately", but there are likely to be some paperwork delays in terms of having the necessary proof of residency in order to convince an employer you are legal. Here is a page with detailed info: https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-of-us-citizens/visas-for...
And of course: if you plan on doing this please get yourself an immigration attorney. My pro tip is to avoid the busy areas in the US for immigration (Bay Area, LA, NYC...). I did my green card process in Montana with a local lawyer after a few years under the yoke of the San Jose INS office using SF-based attorneys. Night and day experience.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
This person wants to live and work from within Canada. Hence they are outside the US and do not owe US taxes.
They want to be an employee of a company in California, while living and working in Canada. This sounds like it's going to be complicated, and a blanket answer of "you don't pay US taxes" seems unlikely to be correct. They're also going to face issues like on day 1 when they walk into the office and they're going to have to go through the whole I-9 thing ( https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central ) - waving hands and saying…
They can't be an employee of a US corporation (as in, a person who gets a W-2, etc).
What they can do is either a) have the US employer set up a Canadian subsidiary that handles their payroll or b) set up their own Canadian legal entity (corporation, sole trader??) and execute a services contract between the two companies. Then they can pay themselves under Canadian rules out of that company, or do whatever plumbers do in Canada -- sole trader or whatnot.
ianal, nor Canadian.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just asked and they did it, haha. I work for a big company with a big lawyer team. I came here on an O-1 and it was basically just resubmitting all that paperwork. I was actually pretty pissed off at the time, because they just filed it super fast after I asked, without even getting my final approval on the full application. I thought the standard for EB-1 was much higher so I was worried, but it turned out fine I…
t seems like you're exactly the sort of person that both the letter and spirit of the law are supposed to help. It's not supposed to be a system just for, say, Nobel Prize winners.
Thank you! Yes, it worked well for me, but I can't help but think the real intention of the visas is just to bring "extraordinary people" to the US. Saying that, I have no idea how to devise a fairer criteria to judge that (because I'm not that extraordinary, obviously). In my mind, I'm thinking of some people I know who are definitely a lot smarter than me but just don't have a PhD and publications. Some of the best people I know don't even have degrees. How can an immigration official with little knowledge of the area of expertise differentiate those people and bring them here?
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#257What is the difference between doing work for someone versus simply just working for someone?
If you have to ask...
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#258Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#259Hi Peter, What type of effect has the proliferation of immigrant worker programs created by the federal government in recent decades, such as H1B, had on the natural born American worker? Generally positive or negative? Thank you
Not an expert, but I was one of those immigrants who took work away from the natural born workers. My understanding is that economists mostly agree that immigration, especially of skilled workers, is generally beneficial to the economy of a country, but perhaps not so beneficial to the local workers who would prefer wages to become inflated due to constrained labor supply. My personal experience was that I got to pay significant US taxes which would otherwise have been paid to another country, then I founded US-based companies that hired natural born employees. Now that I've been a US citizen for 12 years, so I feel that H1-B entrants are reducing my earning potential? Nope. I'd more concerned about smart engineers living in other countries where the cost of living is much lower, who can work remotely, sometimes competing with me for the same work, although to be clear I'm really not concerned about those folks either -- it is hard enough to find good developers in one country that typically one has to expand the net worldwide.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#260I worked in US and was on TN Visa until earlier this month. Came back to my country (MX) and got a travel B-1 visa already. I'm bootstrapping a startup (remotely) with a US Co-Founder. Will I be able to incorporate when the opportunity arise?