Hacker News Reader

Comment by buro9 | Hacker News Reader

If a person has trouble getting a US work visa, wouldn't that person also have trouble freely travelling in and out of the USA?

In which case, how do they get to the seastead? It seems that they would need a ferry, but does that ferry port have passport facilities and act as an international port? And if you're on the seastead for a long period of time and US access required a visa, how do you now renew that visa seeing that you couldn't land in the US without it and there is no US Embassy on the seastead?

Or more plainly... what problem is this solving for whom? It doesn't seem to solve the problem for anyone who is unable to get into the USA without a visa.

View on HN

I'm Norwegian, and live in the UK. I can travel to the US on the visa waiver program for up to 90 days at the time. At one point I worked for a US company for three years, and travelled into the US for meetings every 6-8 weeks. A couple of additional questions because of the huge number of stamps from SFO in short timeframe was all the hassle I ever got on entry.

Yet getting a work visa was still hard enough that we gave up trying.

That makes sense, thanks for sharing.

If a person has trouble getting a US work visa, wouldn't that person also have trouble freely travelling in and out of the USA?

No. Getting an immigrant visa for purposes of employment (E) is different than getting a temporary visa for purposes of a business visit (B-1), training (H-3), transit (C), or tourism (B-2). This is the same with most countries.

It's very easy to imagine a self-employed foreign entrepreneur who denied a visa to live in the US, but can easily make regular business trips to visit potential clients.

Correct. This is also detailed at http://blueseed.co/faq.html#visa

By comparison, the US granted 3.8 million business visas in 2010, vs. only 117,000 H-1Bs. (Note that H-1B visas don't let you work for your own startup.)

For most countries transit visas are a lot easier to get than work visas. I imagine the US not too different.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com