[flagged]
I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
71–80 of 272 posts
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#72How has AI affected your job and what tools are you using? What's an ask you'd make to startups in the legal AI space? Not selling something, but have heard primarily negative sentiments from other lawyers due to hallucination risk.
We're not using AI much at all. We're using it a bit to search and organize documents but not much beyond that. It's almost always a little wrong when responding to immigration-related questions/providing immigration legal advice and a little wrong makes it completely unreliable except as a first step in trying to get answers.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#73With all the turbulence around visas, how does the TN visa situation look these days? Is it relatively easy to get a role in the US from Canada? Cheers king!
While there's been some tightening, the TN is still a very good and workable option for Canadian and Mexican citizens, particularly those clearly coming to work in one of the TN occupations and with a clearly related degree.
Would having prior valid TNs reduce risk or is there any such notion as having too many TNs? I have heard of this anecdotally but it might have been speculation on their part.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#74I switched from e3 (NOT eb3) to h1b and then they did the $100k eo, so it doesn't feel like a good idea to remain on h1b. Now, my us citizen spouse and I are filing a spouse based green card application. (of course, we also filed for EA and AP) Anything you can tell us about how long it might take, how many requests for extra documents they might ask for? (I understand you haven't seen our application, to our minds i…
Even now, marriage-based green card applications are quick and easy. Because almost always they end in an interview at a local USCIS field office, the timing depends in part on the volume and efficiency of that local office but we are seeing most marriage-based green card applications approved within 6 months, regardless of the location. Requests for additional evidence in the marriage-based green card context are rare and when they happen are usually easy to address.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#75A bit general but can you talk about immigration law regarding ITAR regulated industries?
If someone is a a EU citizen and wanted to work in aerospace in the US, would that be possible in general?
What kind of visa or green card would they need?
Would they be able to work on everything like a US citizen or are there areas that are restricted?
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#76I never really understood about PERM. Suppose I am a manager on a team and one of my employees is going through the PERM process.
I'm supposed to put out a job advertisement (but the job isn't real) for my employer. If an applicant passes the interview process, I don't have to hire that person (I probably can't - I don't have budget or permission from the organization). But I do have to honestly say if they have all the required skills -- I'm not permitted to say "wouldn't be a culture fit."
Nor do I have to fire my employee. But maybe my employee won't get a green card six years down the road.
1) Do I have any details wrong here? The one time I talked to a law firm about this they more-or-less refused to state the above outright, but answered all questions in this direction. 2) Doesn't this seem disrespectful to, among others, the applicants to the fake job?
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#77I switched from e3 (NOT eb3) to h1b and then they did the $100k eo, so it doesn't feel like a good idea to remain on h1b. Now, my us citizen spouse and I are filing a spouse based green card application. (of course, we also filed for EA and AP) Anything you can tell us about how long it might take, how many requests for extra documents they might ask for? (I understand you haven't seen our application, to our minds i…
Even now, marriage-based green card applications are quick and easy. Because almost always they end in an interview at a local USCIS field office, the timing depends in part on the volume and efficiency of that local office but we are seeing most marriage-based green card applications approved within 6 months, regardless of the location. Requests for additional evidence in the marriage-based green card context are ra…
That 6 months is considered “quick and easy” says a lot.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#78Not sure if this is too high level, but do you have a "dashboard" of sorts for very high level US immigration stats for tech you could share? Perhaps you have access to a series of charts that show overall visa applications, then broken down by type, the change over time (by year, for instance) and then the approval/denial rates and the change in those rates over time?
You obviously have a front-row seat to how current US immigration policy is impacting tech and so would love to see some high level stats showing the actual change.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even now, marriage-based green card applications are quick and easy. Because almost always they end in an interview at a local USCIS field office, the timing depends in part on the volume and efficiency of that local office but we are seeing most marriage-based green card applications approved within 6 months, regardless of the location. Requests for additional evidence in the marriage-based green card context are ra…
That 6 months is considered “quick and easy” says a lot.
If you compare that to other countries it’s fast and easy.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#80My partner is a refugee due to her former homeland making her a political prisoner for advocating for democracy on the internet. Her green card was approved in 2023 and she’s been here since 2017. She works full time and has no criminal record (and doesn’t engage in activities to cause a change there).
We are not married, though that could change eif it offers meaningful protection for her. I’m a white guy born in USA. How paranoid is “reasonable” for a guy who predicted that the USA would become a fascist state in my lifetime two years ago and yet has been surprised how rapidly it’s coming true? Any advice? Thank you.