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I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
481–490 of 527 posts
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#482If a transgender software engineer who is a US citizen applies for asylum in a non-US country, are they at risk of losing their US assets (e.g. a home) or having their US accounts frozen?
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Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some expat US citizens tried to claim this to avoid paying taxes for the U.S. on foreign income. The courts enthusiastically said “no”.
Isn't it exclusive to the US that you have to pay taxes after having moved abroad, despite living in another country for a long time, having your home address, etc. set there and so forth.
Yes but USA lets you write off taxes you've already paid to other countries, up to ~$150k - $200k of income IIRC (might be wrong here on the details).
You also get other benefits too though. If you ever become desolate or need help getting home, embassies can help or provide a loan. If war breaks out or some natural disaster happens, America will come for you. You get the power of our passport. You can still collect benefits like social security.
Pros and cons.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#484if a person in the US on a visa changes roles, say from software engineer to manager, and acts in this role prior to changing the visa, is this fraud?
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it exclusive to the US that you have to pay taxes after having moved abroad, despite living in another country for a long time, having your home address, etc. set there and so forth.
Yes but USA lets you write off taxes you've already paid to other countries, up to ~$150k - $200k of income IIRC (might be wrong here on the details). You also get other benefits too though. If you ever become desolate or need help getting home, embassies can help or provide a loan. If war breaks out or some natural disaster happens, America will come for you. You get the power of our passport. You can still collect…
> If war breaks out or some natural disaster happens, America will come for you.
Sort of. The state department will arrange evac, but if it's a charter on a PJ, you'll be on the hook for it and will have to sign a promissory note for it.
Sending in the military is very rare. You'll have better luck with a private security company, but they aren't cheap.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying it is not Israeli government policy to abuse detainees?
Yeah I could say it's not. Just as it was not US policy to abuse detainees, but Abu Ghraib still happened. Same way it's not Israeli gov't policy, I take that back, but there are still lots of credible Palestinian reports of abuse at the hands of settlers (supported by the army), the army, the jail system, etc.
Then we're broadly in agreement. Some of the settler behaviour is atrocious and enabled by segments of the military.
Did you know, however, that the word "settler" applies to any Jew living beyond the Green Line, generally in places that Jews have lived for millennia before being expelled by Jordan in 1947 (the lucky ones who were not killed where they stood)? Mostly so-called "settlers" just some Jews living in some neighbourhoods, often suburbs of Jerusalem. Mostly.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I’m a foreign national in a country I can do almost everything a national can do besides voting Certainly not in general! That very much depends on the country and the immigration status under which you are in that country. Most visas strongly restrict the right to work. If you leave, you may not be allowed back in, unless you can obtain fresh clearance. Under the Oslo Accords, signed by Israel and the PLO, the…
So are Palestinians immigrants in Israel, without a visa? Even immigrants have freedom of movement and are subject to the same laws as nationals. They are of course not illegals immigrants, because they were already there. So what are they? When it’s convenient, they are a nation that doesn’t want peace. When it’s convenient, Palestine was never a country. So what is it?
Not all of them were already there. Many immigrated there from Jordan (and to the Gaza Strip from Egypt) post 1948.
In the West Bank they are former Jordanian citizens who had their citizenship revoked post 1967. Egypt never offered residents of Gaza citizenship, so I suppose they are former Ottoman Empire subjects without any new state to become citizens of. Remember that they rejected the creation of an Arab state in 1948 under UN Resolution 181, and Israel supported the creation of such a state.
Broadly, they are a stateless population that has made war on Israel since 1948 (and against Jews in the area since before then) and it is hard to see why it's Israel that owes them something, as opposed to their Egyptian and Jordanian allies who were in control of those territories and their lives for 20 years.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_annexation_of_the_We...
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is as bad as it has ever been……… But border patrol has always been a bunch of small dick assholes, all the way back to Obama. My wife and I adopted a child from another country. He was 18 months of age at the time. We flew into LAX. We were exhausted from a long flight. We got to customs. Agents approached us and said that they had a few questions and said that I (the father) needed to collect our bags and they wo…
> all the way back to Obama. I, a natural born US citizen, was a student in the Bush years and I'd drive up to Canada. Coming back, the US guys were always aggro and weird. I had one guy smelling my laundry. At the time I figured it was some post 9/11 BS.
I always had the impression that this is how they were trained. Like it's part of the homeland security/border agent training to act as hostile as possible. I've never had a positive interaction with an US border patrol.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's BS. Random tourists aren't being "disappeared for no good reason". A "tourist" that overstayed by 2 years without applying for a Visa and/or started working here are being deported back to their home nation - in accordance with the law. There's a tremendous amount of scaremongering, fearmongering, and misinformation being thrown about currently. Majority of it is very much over stated hyperbole.
Sources say otherwise: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/11/german-tourist...
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025-03-14/green-card-holder-fr...
> Senior described Schmidt being “violently interrogated” at Logan Airport for hours, and being stripped naked, put in a cold shower by two officials, and being put back onto a chair.
> She said Schmidt told her immigration agents pressured him to give up his green card. She said he was placed on a mat in a bright room with other people at the airport, with little food or water, suffered sleep deprivation, and was denied access to his medication for anxiety and depression.
Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> forget what the law says if push came to shove you would be killed no questions which is fair if you think about it Under no circumstances would any thinking person consider that fair.
haha man you got so much to learn about the world fairness only exists in blogs and comments :)