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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

#291

Post by linuskendall »

casenmgreen wrote: post #213
junar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you were unmarried, you were either an immediate relative if under age 21, or family preference F1 if 21 or older. Because you married, you are now in the family preference F3 category, which has a much larger backlog and a much longer wait. You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. The only thing that can change your situation is if your marriage ends in death or divorce.…

> You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. I may be wrong, but I think immigration consequences were not something any reasonable, normal person would have had any reason to think of. We are normal people, living normal lives. As I say, I may be wrong, but this feels like blaming the victim.

As we increasingly live/love/marry across nationalities, being very conscious about immigration rules has to become something “normal people” care about and think about.

Rather than blaming the victim it’s a hard truth. Now, I would personally love for this to be different BUT as long as rules on immigration are what they are in many places of the world, we need to consider it when we move/marry/have kids.

For instance, one important piece of advice to people thinking about studies abroad (especially PhD) is to also consider what their particular opportunities for work and permanent residence is in the place they go to. Chance are after many years in a place, you may meet someone or you may want to stay. If you choose a place (say UK a few years ago) that is unlikely to let you stick around, well you may need to be prepared for disappointment.

Furthermore, unless you live in a country where you clearly have an idea of how to get PR then you always need live with the understanding that you may at any point have to pack up and move. This is a reality, and sucks to take in but is the truth. Nothing worse than building a life some place and then 10 years down the line get rejected during your semi annual “visa renewal”.

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

#292

Post by hervature »

casenmgreen wrote: post #213
junar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you were unmarried, you were either an immediate relative if under age 21, or family preference F1 if 21 or older. Because you married, you are now in the family preference F3 category, which has a much larger backlog and a much longer wait. You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. The only thing that can change your situation is if your marriage ends in death or divorce.…

> You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. I may be wrong, but I think immigration consequences were not something any reasonable, normal person would have had any reason to think of. We are normal people, living normal lives. As I say, I may be wrong, but this feels like blaming the victim.

Are you an American citizen or ever had a desire to immigrate to another country? Do people fall in love and get married without thinking of the practical consequences? Yes. Do people also not get married to their love because it messes with their immigration? Also yes. Both are reasonable.

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

#293

Post by vhiremath4 »

casenmgreen wrote: post #213
junar wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you were unmarried, you were either an immediate relative if under age 21, or family preference F1 if 21 or older. Because you married, you are now in the family preference F3 category, which has a much larger backlog and a much longer wait. You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. The only thing that can change your situation is if your marriage ends in death or divorce.…

> You should have considered the immigration consequences before you got married. I may be wrong, but I think immigration consequences were not something any reasonable, normal person would have had any reason to think of. We are normal people, living normal lives. As I say, I may be wrong, but this feels like blaming the victim.

Immigrating into the US is notoriously difficult. There is a ton of demand. The US does not do even a mediocre job of prioritizing this demand, but it feels like the argument “I’m a normal person so I didn’t think about this” is rooted in lala land. If I was trying to immigrate into any other country (let alone the US), I would immediately and primarily think about how marriage might impact the status of my application. It would literally be the first thing I’d think of.

Not saying it’s wrong to get married as you’re trying to immigrate into the most competitive country in the world, but you do assume responsibility that this might impact your application.

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

#295

Post by elliotto »

hervature wrote: post #109
ValentineC wrote: post #69

I'm not sure if this is appropriate for this thread, but: I'm a Singaporean, and we have access to the H-1B1 visa. If asked whether I need a visa in a US job application, would it be fine to say "no"? How should I explain my situation, given that most people might assume that hiring non-US candidates would require participation in the H-1B lottery?

This is my (not Peter's) advice for Canadians/Mexicans for TN, Australians for E-3, and seems to apply for Singaporeans/Chileans for H-1B1: If it is an automated system, just put no. That may be an automatic filter. There will be time to talk to a human and say "all we need is X/Y/Z" where X/Y/Z is something the hiring manager can do without involving a lawyer. If a human is asking you, then just say "Yes. I need a v…

Hi, I'm Australian and have applied a few times for us based tech roles and ticked 'require sponsorship'. I never really got far with my research - are you saying that the e3 is an automated process and I can get away with ticking 'do not need sponsorship'?

Thank you!

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

#296

Post by casenmgreen »

null0pointer wrote: post #245
casenmgreen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employers should have to prove they were not able to find a U.S. citizen who can do the job before they're allowed to hire someone that needs a work permit. Why? It's their money and their business. What business do you or I have in forcing upon them what they can do? any more than they would have any business forcing themselves upon us?

I'm not a US citizen, but you might find that most US citizens would prefer their government to prioritize the interests of US citizens over foreign nationals. Just as I would expect my home country's government to prioritize the interests of its citizens over foreigners.

> interests of US citizens

The people who own businesses are US citizens.

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

#297

Post by addicted »

proberts wrote: post #36
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #27

How are you thinking about the potential effects of a second Trump administration on immigration and how it might affect tech companies?

There's a lot to worry about but to keep the worry/analysis grounded, I think it makes sense to review what his administration did last time. And most of the damage was done to those who were illegal or seeking asylum or were from certain countries and seeking to travel to the U.S. It was awful and very disruptive to the lives of many. On the legal business immigration side, the main damage was the result of changes…

They also divorced the H4 renewal process from the H1B process.

USCIS had consistently renewed H4 visas along with the primary H1B application. Since H1Bs can pay for premium processing this meant both would usually be renewed within a month.

The Trump administration added a completely unnecessary biometrics requirement to the H4 renewal application (even if you had literally got your biometrics done a week ago) which meant the H4 application was now separated from the H1B application and now took at least a year to process.

Considering one can only apply for a renewal 6 months before expiry this led to tens of thousands of H4 visa holders losing the ability to travel, and having their EADs expire forcing them to quit their jobs.

This was a completely malicious action with the only purpose being to make people’s lives worse.

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

#298

Post by smcin »

gangstead wrote: post #49

One idea to replace the H1-B lottery that I've seen on HN is to sort the applications by salary and let in the top XX highest paid. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is this one of those "why don't they just..." type of ideas that people with first hand knowledge know is majorly flawed?

If you sorted H1B applications by salary and only let in the top XX highest paid, then the allocation would simply skew heavily towards tech in Silicon Valley, TX, WA, MA and finance in NYC, and almost none would be allocated to Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, etc., and not much in lower-paid sectors. And if you only compared to median wages by state (not county, or metro area), then lower cost-of-living areas like Folsom CA would get hugely penalized for being stuck in the same bucket as SF/SV. (Also by the way now employers would have to compete against each other on raw salary, not stock grants, so you're removing the incentive component for early-stage startups, and raising their effective tax rate, which breaks how they're set up.) Arguably instead H1B should enforce some reasonable minimum salary, based on metro area. (don't confuse that with minimum wage).

So if you want to reform things you need to construct something less simplistic which can't easily be gamed. (What you're describing is like Canada's Provincial Nominee Program, which is ~35% of their economic admissions, but it grants permanent residence, not just a work visa.)

Anyway a less-discussed backstop solution to prevent abuse in H1B is to shorten (legislate) the maximum time to acquire (employment-based) Green Card - it originally used to be <6mths, now it can easily be 10+ years (from the date the employee first arrived on F1/H1B/L1, not the date the GC petition was finally raised, which can itself be 5+ years after that if the employer drags things out, which happens).

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

#299

Post by iluvcommunism »

I remember watching the company I worked for in California lay off Americans and replace them with Indians. For all the talk about “prevailing wage” and “shortage of talent,” I just remember seeing it with my own eyes. One guy worked there till he was in his 60’s, built the company’s entire software, yet was kicked to the curb.

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

#300

Post by gorbypark »

Theoretical situation: I'm Canadian, I don't have a degree at all. If I found a startup that is incorporated in the US, but I'm still in Canada and most employees are outside of the US (although not exclusively), is there a "level of success" at which I might be considered for some sort of residency visa in the US? Suppose I wanted to, for example, open a physical office in the US for the already formed startup.
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