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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

#241

Post by pell »

tombert wrote: post #118
proberts wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reports have scared a lot of people but you and your wife should be fine. That being said, if she were detained by ICE, then yes, immediately call an immigration or criminal defense lawyer.

Thank you. I have my immigration attorney's number directly available if the worst happens. As I said, I'm not that worried; the only concern I have is that we are traveling internationally at the end of the year and while I have no doubt that they are outlier cases, I have heard of a lot of scary stuff happening during customs upon reentry. Anyway, thanks for the advice!

If you're traveling via Europe, you could finish US border control in Ireland directly before departure and won't be checked again.

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

#243

Post by throwaway2037 »

ilumanty wrote: post #230
throwaway2037 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There have been plenty of horror stories about people who were accused of plotting to work in the US from their laptop on false pretence of being on vacation. Reddit?

https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/deportationen-unter-trump-sie-h... Google Translate: https://www-tagesanzeiger-ch.translate.goog/deportationen-un...

This part stands out to me:

    EN> They base their accusation on the fact that she also gives online language courses to Americans and wants to meet some of her students for coffee in New York.
To me, that is good police work. I see it quite a lot when I am travelling: People (visibly foreign) giving language lessons by video chat or phone call. Obviously, they don't have a work visa to do it, nor will they be paying local taxes on those wages. I have even asked people about it. Each time, they casually reply: "Yeah, I always work a little when I travel to make more money." The shock never wears off for me -- that people can casually break the law in a foreign country when it is convenient for them. It would have been better for that (Swiss?) person to apply for a regular tourist visa at the US embassy in Switzerland, make clear her job and her intention not to work while on holiday. She made too many assumptions when using the ESTA. There are so many stories online about people writing dumb things on social media then experiencing "friction" at the US border. The ESTA application even specifically warns about it. Again, my sympathy is low.

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

#244

Post by motbus3 »

bluegatty wrote: post #49
proberts wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. Which situation?

Probably the 'current situation' which has seen a radical shift in immigration policies not seen in many decades.

Yes. I it was it. Also in general, people have good and bad feelings about things even if not completely rational. For example, I wonder how if people think this sensible or fair. If they think people who are already there might be victim or if somehow it would allow the overtake of basic rights.

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

#245

Post by figmert »

I've been looking at O-1 and I struggled to understand what generally would qualify. I have some things that might qualify, but might not be strong cases. Is the only way to understand such a thing to hire a lawyer?

Separately, how bad is it for future if I get a denial for any visa?

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

#246

Post by confidantlake »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #225
jmyeet wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally lawyers need to be involved to make sure any rejections are compliant. There's a whole cottage industry around this. Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfu…

> I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years. I am sure this would have terrible second order effects. This does not sound well thought out. Also, many companies are so large that in parallel one part might be shrinking (or a division closing) and others might be growing. It is not always possible or reasonable to internally transfer 100% o…

If the company is that large, I am sure they can figure it out.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

bluegatty wrote: post #180
JuniperMesos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants. Yeah, but issues of culture and identity are extremely important, so important that it's farcical to exclude them when evaluating to what degree the US benefits from immigrants or deciding what immigration policy ought to be. > Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citize…

It's not 'farcical' to move issues of identity aside because most people don't think there is anything whatsoever wrong with some degree of migration from other countries, and its pragmatically 'non issue'. It only really becomes an uncomfortable issue around 'large scale undocumented migration' - but that's a whole other separate concern, it's not within the bounds of the law, and it's not related to tech at all. If…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by confidantlake »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #214
aryehof wrote: post #212

What a creative way to solicit new business. These quarterly touts for work on HN in the guise of AMA leave me somewhat annoyed.

Any decent immigration attorney who works with tech companies has a virtually unlimited stream of work available. I very much doubt this is the reason for the posts.

Seems unlikely since lawyers have a notoriously high un/underemployment rate. Unless we are using circular reason to define "decent" as anyone with unlimited demand.

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

#249

Post by jen20 »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #235
jmyeet wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally lawyers need to be involved to make sure any rejections are compliant. There's a whole cottage industry around this. Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfu…

I'm convinced people who say this: > given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen are crazy deluded about the quality of the average US citizen software engineering job applicant vs the quality of the person doing that job. Or you haven't ever actually done hiri…

> the average CS graduate from an average or low tier college in the US is not as good of a hire as the average int'l MSCS degree holder.

That is an abjectly insane statement. The quality of higher education varies massively throughout the world outside the US, just as it does within the US.

It also assumes that education in computer science is sufficient to become employable in the technology sector, which is in and of itself patently untrue.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

bubblethink wrote: post #231
jmyeet wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will convince me that the likes of Tata and Infosys are a good use of H1Bs. And because they flood the system with H1B applications, other actually valuable positions go unfilled. If the customers for these bodyshops could save money by outsourcing directly to India, they would've already. And beyond those big bodyshops you have any number of smaller H1B fraud schemes eg [1][2][3][4]. If you're Indian-born an…

>when there's significant unemployment in the sector then there is by definition availability Humans aren't fungible.

[deleted]
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