Hacker News Reader

Comment by tinbad | Hacker News Reader

Not a question but wanted to point out the L1 visa that is often overlooked by foreign startup founders. It allows for founders/workers of foreign companies to be transferred to a US subsidiary that is majority owned by the foreign entity. I found it a fairly simple and straightforward process that got me from nothing to L1 to Green Card in about 13 months (although with help of immigration lawyer of course). The main requirements are having worked for at least 12 months for the foreign entity before transferring and the person must be in a managerial/executive position. Also the foreign entity must own the majority of the US subsidiary.

View on HN

Fair statement but USCIS can be really tough on new/small company L-1s so these need to be done right and supported by extensive documentation of the U.S. and foreign companies' operations.

Does this mean you could:

1. Open a UK small business with yourself as the director and sole employee.

2. Set up a pass-through corp in the US for remote work.

3. Wait a while to establish the pass-through, then send yourself a job offer from the pass-through to the UK.

4. Get a visa as an employee of the pass-through - which you also own and control?

Or will the UCSIS laugh at that?

You don't need to do it that way. I followed this pattern.

1. Set up the UK company. It has to have been running for a certain time, and you have to be an employee of it for at least a year. The business has to be actually trading and real, have an office and financial results.

2. Apply for an L-1A, saying you will transfer yourself to the U.S. to start a new business. You then have a year to set up the new company and get it operational. You will need to invest at least $100,000 in the business. It took me less than a month to get the visa.

3. Renew the L1 for up to seven years. Before then, if your company grows you can change to a green card. If, like me, your company fails, you'll have to head back home :-(

4. It may be easier just to go for an E2 visa, where you invest $150,000 in a business. There's no path to a green card though.

http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/opening-new-office.html

It also doesn't have prevailing wage requirements, so a lot of companies use this as a way to get a worker for even less than an H-1B. I've seen oil&gas engineers with Master's degrees and 15+ years of experience making $37,000 on an L-1 visa. It is the most commonly and widely abused visa.

> got me from nothing to L1 to Green Card in about 13 months

European citizen + EB2?

Yes, Although born in Russia, I have the privilege of Dutch citizenship. Not quite remember what the category was but for the green card it was multinational executive or something along those lines. Truth to be said, 13 months to GC was insanely fast and even my immigration lawyer was surprised. However dealing with US immigration I didn't feel the fact I was from a European country mattered anything. Going in I thought I was special, but (good thing) US doesn't discriminate on this as much, if at all, as I expected.

It's not that "being European" matters with the GC, the part that matters is "not from India or China", the waiting times for those two is crazy long :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com