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Comment by FreedomToCreate | Hacker News Reader

The easiest way to get a work visa to the US is to first get a job offer from a US tech company. Then all you need to do is get a TN visa from the border and you can work and live in the US. A TN visa has to be renewed every 3 years and does not get you American citizenship nor can you apply for it. To that you must get your employer (once you start working for them on your TN visa) to sponsor you for an H1-B visa. That is lottery based and if you are lucky enough to get one, then you can start your journey towards a green card (this may take up to 8 years).

In short, apply to jobs in the states and once you have an offer you can think about getting a visa. You don't need to worry about three citizenships. That is a long long process. The real challenge is finding a job.

Being a Canadian, the Toronto/Waterloo region as a multitude of job openings right now for CompSci grads.

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Some of these are wrong.

- You can go from TN to EB3; it just gets hairy for the period of time that your AOS is being evaluated. I was going through the process when my H1-B got approved and switched to that. There's a 60 day wait period after you last enter on TN, and you cannot leave the country when the AOS gets filed until you get your EAD and AP or GC, whichever comes first.

- Green card will not take 8 years unless you were born in India, China, or the Philippines. EB-3 priority date for rest of world is March 2016, and it takes longer than 3 months to get PERM approved, so by the time it gets approved it would be current. After that, it takes about 6-9 months to get the AOS approved (and you usually get your EAD/AP a little earlier).

>Green card will not take 8 years unless you were born in India, China, or the Philippines

What if you have a Canadian citizenship? Is it still 8 years?

>There's a 60 day wait period after you last enter on TN, and you cannot leave the country when the AOS

So, when I first get my TN visa, I cannot leave the country without any of those papers? How long does my first TN visa last and if that expires I have to wait for 60 days before I get a new one?

It's not based on citizenship, purely birth country. You can search for priority dates and they get updated monthly. It will take a few years for China, India and the Philippines but if you were born outside those three countries you just have to wait through the processing.

Your visa will initially be valid for 3 years. It can be extended a few times. Ideally you'd have at least a year left on your current visa when submitting the AOS application since you cannot reenter on TN once that happens.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I'm going through the process now and using time spans quoted by my lawyers and my own research.

Is hong kong lumped in with the rest of china in regards to this?

Thanks Vlad! It was very informative and helpful!

Very helpful!

Most of the companies would ask something along the lines of are you allowed to work in America. For this question, am I allowed to say, "yes I am". Given, I do not have a TN visa yet?

Yes for the question "Are you authorized to work in the US" you can answer yes.

For the question "Do you require sponsorship" you can answer NO.

This is ok as long as your are TN visa eligible.

That answers all the questions I can think about at the moment. Thank you very much for the help, it was informative and very helpful!

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