They were probably on a treaty visa, Like E2 (which i have, it's not just for business owners/investors, employees can get this too) or T2 (The NAFTA equivalent). These visas allow you to live and work in the US for a very long time (extendable indefinitely for 2 years a pop in my case), but they have no dual-intent attached to them. They are a dead-end and if you want to stay in the US you need to start from square one with an H1B/Marriage or convince your employer to start a standalone green card sponsorship, which costs like $50k and 2+ years of processing, where the only benefit to the employer is that you can now get a different job.
It's actually kind of a problem, there's a lot of people on these visas who've lived and worked here for 20+ years with no viable route to permanent residency.
It was my mistaken understanding, that another poster cleared up.
I thought that because H1-B VISAs tethered one to their employer, then your situation was understood to be impermanent since if you lost your job and didn't quickly find another then you would have to leave the country.
It's good that this is being highlighted, but I don't think the author really understands how this works. H1Bs are "nonimmigrant" visas. And, if you lose your H1B because you're laid off and can't find another sponsor, then the "citizenship" stuff discussed isn't an option for you. It's not a question of a long waiting period. You simply won't be eligible.
What these workers really need are greencards. Usually, they get the sponsoring employer to sponsor them for a greencard (really hard to get, long wait etc.). Meantime, the employer also files for a H1B (relatively easy to get, no wait). That way they can come to the US and start working while they wait years for the greencard application to move along. But if the sponsoring employer lets them go and they can't find another sponsor, I doubt they're going to be able to keep the green card application alive either.
With a greencard, they can live in US the more or less unconditionally (at least as far as employment is concerned). Then, eligibility for citizenship is only a question of waiting.
First hand, it's tough to live in a country for years and years on a visa that's totally dependent on your job, knowing you could wake up to an email any day that basically says you're fired and you have days to get out of the country!
They might have moved here as part of college visa programs but they needed H1B to work and build their skill set. The college visa (F1/ J1) does not come with a work authorization beyond 3 years.
They are right. H1B is a temporary visa that you can get with a company sponsor pretty easily. You get a H1B for 3 years, and you can renew it once for another 3. Within those 6 years, if the company wants to retain you and get you a green card, they need to prove that "they looked, but couldn't find an eligible American" to replace you. Hence these ads with overly specialized position descriptions.
The entire intention of the H1B visa, set at its outset, is to allow people to become permanent residents. The same isn’t the case for the TN visa, which is explicitly a short term work visa.
But this isn’t even talking about people applying to get the visas. This is about people who were on those visas, and have applied for a green card and have been approved for a green card.
It’s an administrative sleight of hand. “Yes, you’re approved for the green card as we’re promised, but unfortunately, since you were born in China, we just don’t have the paper to print it out on for right now…Why don’t you come back 50 years later…ok now get out, I need to hand the paper I don’t have for you to the guy born in Greece behind you who has been waiting all of 2 days”.
Finally, if you’re a Canadian with an intention of moving to the US as a permanent resident you can absolutely apply as an H1B. Just make sure you meet all
The skill requirements, none of which exist for the TN visa, convince a company to hire you, with the condition that it will take them at least a few months to know whether you can actually work for them as the govt approves the visa, convince them to pay for the legal costs and processing fees because you legally cannot, and then convince them to renew that process every 1-3 years. Then you need to convince them to apply for your permanent residency, in a 3 stage process that involves proving that no one else born in the U.S. can do the job as wel as you, after having spent at least 6 months advertising, then spending another stage of applications proving you will contribute to the US’s benefit, and then finally getting approval for you to be a green card holder.
Now, congratulations. As a Canadian citizen were you born in Canada, because then you will be shipped your green card tomorrow. But as a Canadian citizen were you born in China? Well, I guess 50+ years later we might ship you your green card. India? 180+ years.
Oh, as an aside if you were in the latter 2 categories, do keep in mind that the 2 and 4 year old kids will have no path to remaining in the US once they turn 21.
I think h1b itself is limited to 5 after which you have to leave for a year unless you already filed green card application. At least that was the case back in the day
Ya. You can only be in a H1B for 6 years, but combined with an F1 and OPT, could be longer. I was just thinking about working visas.
You have to get a green card after your second work visa or go back home, that's the choice. Unlike other countries where you can work on a working visa indefinitely and never even qualify for permanent residency.
There are plenty startups that sponsor H1-Bs. Sponsoring an H1-B is not the bottleneck sometimes when it comes to hiring. Even small consultant shops with less than 5 people do H1-Bs. But many applicants will want to think twice about it in case they plan on applying for employment based permanent residency. An H1-B is valid for three years and can be extended for another three for a total of 6 years. After that you can continue to extend it IF you have a permanent residency application that is pending.
The issue for startups happen when you take a permanent residency application into account. For instance, I had a friend who got into two great startups who were willing to sponsor H1-Bs. He really wanted to work at either. However, he also wanted to apply for his permanent residency within 2 years to continue staying in the US. However, a company needs to have certain revenue (besides other minimium requirements) to be able to apply for a green card. Both the companies checked with their lawyers and they did say that it was a big risk factor when it came to applying for a permanent residency. So he actually ended up passing both offers.
In retrospect he would have been fine since both companies ended up getting acquired by Intel and Google, where he would have been fine. But that is part of the risk involved.
Well he only mentions that the higher ups wouldn't sponsor the employment based green card. The only thing he mentions about H1B is that it is renewable only once for 3 years. Where do you see that his H1B wasn't being sponsored? He would've being working on an H1B anyway.
that assumption is really "theoretical" and personal. The visa conditions don't tell you can stay for an arbitrarily long time. As others have pointed out, H1B is explicitly temporary and does not in itself lead to a permanent residency path. The US is not like others countries, say UK, where staying for 10 years in some visas or 5 years in a work visa lead you to PR. What they've transformed the H1B in is sort of "unwarranted"
H1-B is a dual intent work visa an you're not required to emigrate. You shave the option to extend your work permit for 6 years or pursue permanent residency.
I think the question is - someone outside the US has a business, moves to the US on an H1B, and wants to continue working for their outside-the-US business.
> If they've been here for a year or more, they should be able to quit their jobs if they want to without repercussions.
To clarify: you absolutely can do that on an H1B. The problem is that you need to have a new job lined up to replace it, and that job needs to have gone through visa approval processes that can take up to three months (there is a grace period, I believe, of 30 days, soon to be extended to 60). This also costs the company money in legal fees, so people tend to get jobs with large corporations rather than startups, who are less willing to swallow the cost.
So, it's possible, just very irritating to do. And if you're also applying for a green card sponsored by your company then you have additional issues - you can get shunted back to step one when you change employers if you haven't already reached a certain stage.
They were probably on a treaty visa, Like E2 (which i have, it's not just for business owners/investors, employees can get this too) or T2 (The NAFTA equivalent). These visas allow you to live and work in the US for a very long time (extendable indefinitely for 2 years a pop in my case), but they have no dual-intent attached to them. They are a dead-end and if you want to stay in the US you need to start from square one with an H1B/Marriage or convince your employer to start a standalone green card sponsorship, which costs like $50k and 2+ years of processing, where the only benefit to the employer is that you can now get a different job.
It's actually kind of a problem, there's a lot of people on these visas who've lived and worked here for 20+ years with no viable route to permanent residency.
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