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

Time for another AMA. Previous threads we've done: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts.

I'll be here for the next 5 hours. As usual, there are countless possible immigration-related topics and I'll try to respond to whatever questions you ask but as much as possible I'd like to focus on issues related to the pandemic and the corresponding travel and visa bans and suspensions, office closures, etc. Please remember that I can't provide legal advice on specific cases for obvious liability reasons because I won't have access to all the facts. Please stick to a factual discussion in your questions and comments and I'll try to do the same in my answers!

Are there any changes done for US immigration laws during COVID? How would it impact existing and future YC startups

Is it risky to change jobs on H1B with an I-140 approved right now? Both in terms of H1B transfer and especially a new PERM filing since a lot of Americans are out of jobs right now. Have you noticed or do you anticipate PERM filings being difficult?

Thanks for doing this, Peter!

Hey Peter,

Thank you so much for doing this!

Im a German citizen living in Mexico. Since I have been to Iran I no longer qualify for ESTA and had to apply for a visa at the embassy here in Mexico City to visit the USA. My visa has been in processing for 2y now and I have not received any response other than "still in processing, we will be in touch". What do you recommend? Is there anything I can do to accelerate this? Or withdraw the application and apply from Germany?

Thanks a lot!!

My country (Argentina) has a lottery(esque?) approach to giving work visas for the US, so basically: even with company support, work visas are subject to probability (~30% chance of getting it for a given year). Do you have experience, or do you know, how companies handle hires from countries with this methodology?

Thanks for doing this AMA!