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Comment by Zombieball | Hacker News Reader

Not trying to be negative, but my understanding has always been that U.S. immigrations doesn't care whether or not money exchanges hands. If you are doing work that a U.S. citizen would normally get paid for you are still technically "taking a job" from a local.

While I am sure there are conditions that will allow you to come and stay in the country, I would be careful what your arrangement is with any potential startup and how it is worded.

Perhaps another individual on HN has more insight into U.S. visa rules and can provide better guidance?

Good luck nonetheless!

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I also very much hope you find some way of working things out, but there is another thing you should be aware of:

> just food and a place to live in transportation would be nice too but i am not going to take money from you and i am not going to ask your for health insurance or be your employee, i don't want to break any rules

There is a good chance that, as well as raising immigration law issues, this arrangement could also cause your non-employer to violate federal and state minimum wage laws.

I second the advice of others who suggest consulting an immigration attorney. This is a challenging and important problem, and it really demands the advice of a professional. If you don't think you can afford one you should: 1) schedule an initial consultation with a good immigration attorney anyway. You should get at least this first conversation for free. (And beware: there are many truly awful immigration attorneys. Do a little research.) 2) Look to see if there are any law schools in your area that have immigration law clinics. They may well take your case for free and, although you will be assisted by law students, they will be supervised closely by faculty and will probably provide you with very good advice.

Good luck.

Yep. Not paying people properly for work is a crime. I know in California that's a big deal. See, e.g., the crackdown a couple years back on "interships" that were just free jobs. And my guess is that immigration authorities would see food and lodging as payment, meaning both employer and employee would be violating the law.

However, I don't think there's anything illegal about paying an independent contractor who's living in another country. So my suggestion to codeornocode would be to find some sort of work in the US that could be done remotely from some safe third country. Immigration authorities care a lot about displacement of their own citizens, but in the places I've lived they don't give a hoot about somebody who is on a working vacation.

Just as a bit of anecdata, I know New Zealand considers WWOOF'ing [1], in which you get accomodation and food in exchange for work, as actual work with compensation, so you need a work visa.

[1] http://wwoofinternational.org

With tech skills like his in NZ he could get a real job and get paid real compensation. No need for Wwoofing.

Having recently left my last position as a Senior Systems Admin. I'm now in the process of making a shift in IT career paths to a developer of some sort of description.

OP, you really should consider making your way here to NZ.

Just jumping on the bandwagon to say that NZ is an amazing place (visited for 2mo) and seemed decently hospitable to various foreigners. Not as diverse as the US but it's a wonderful place to live/work with great people.

Yeah, if the alternative is working for free and crashing on someone's couch, NZ would be an awesome place to go. Also it's a relatively easy immigration process, compared to the US at least.

Having said that, Auckland felt like a bit of a technical wasteland... I've heard it's better down in Wellington or Christchurch, but I never regretted moving to San Francisco.

Can't speak for the US, but this is the case in Canada.

I sponsored s.o. for their permanent resident visa and we were told to wait until the status has been approved before any kind of work can be done. The immigration hotline mentioned that volunteer work would be possible during that time, but it would still require an application from the employer. It took the employer a few days to get all the paperwork sorted out and 2 weeks later the application was denied, leaving everyone a bit disappointed & furious about all the wasted time and promised opportunities on both sides.

Generally speaking: even if you do work as a volunteer, the kind of work you're going to do is most likely s.th. that should either be paid for or could be done by a local resident/citizen. If the US system is anything like the Canadian one, then you'll still get in trouble if they figure out that you've been working, even if it's for free/volunteer work.

yup. I've been denied entry into the states to volunteer at a tech conference because it would've been "taking a job" from a local.

Many hostels overseas offer this arrangement and it is totally legal through some kind of room-and-board exception, but I'm not sure about the US.

I'm pretty sure its illegal (everyone I know who has done it had a work visa) but frequently ignored.

Also, indentured servitude is frowned upon.

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