Ask HN: What visa do foreign YC founders use to stay in US beyond 3 months?
Is there a minimum funding they need to raise to qualify for a long term visa ?
From USCIS:
* Receipt of nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavor
* Membership in associations in the field for which classification is sought which require outstanding achievements, as judged by recognized national or international experts in the field
* Published material in professional or major trade publications, newspapers or other major media about the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s work in the field for which classification is sought
* Original scientific, scholarly, or business-related contributions of major significance in the field
* Authorship of scholarly articles in professional journals or other major media in the field for which classification is sought
* A high salary or other remuneration for services as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence
* Participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in a field of specialization allied to that field for which classification is sought
* Employment in a critical or essential capacity for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation
Additional info on the O-1A can be found here: http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers...
I'm specifically ignoring H-1B as an option because it's only a viable option between April 1st and 5th of a given year, and the odds are very much stacked against you at this point (from a pure statistics perspective).
There are a few other visas that may be an option, such as the investor visa (E-2), and intra-company transfer visa (L-1), but these are highly situation specific visas.
Also, this is not legal advice, I'm not an immigration lawyer, and you really should talk to an immigration lawyer :)
TN is risky because you may be asked to prove that you are not employing yourself and that you can can be fired at any time by your boss. On top of that, you must be paid market wage or higher and not a "founder's salary".
Another visa to consider is the E-2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa) if you have the financial resources or after you have raised some funding.
This is not legal advice, consult an attorney.
Is this because it wasn't intended for that purpose and the system is cracking down on founder's using it as such?
I've looked into the O-1 based on the fact that I'm (legitimately) a top expert on a very niche field. If I ever move to the states I think it's my only possibility since I work for myself.
What they want is "objectively verifiable" evidence in the form of press, recognition, awards, earnings, etc. What they value much less now than they used to is famous people telling them how awesome you are (e.g. getting your famous investor to write you a letter is less valuable now). Their stance on this is that if you're as awesome as you say you are, there should be objective third party validation available.
So in your case, since you are a very top expert in a very niche field, you should be able to produce objective verification from experts in the field, peer reviewed publications (or well regarded publications in the field), and so on.
The good news is that the visa actually is designed for people like you :)
Once again though: Talk to an immigration lawyer, this is not immigration advice, just things as I know them :)
O-1: Typically I would think of athletes/entertainers, in the US for competition/show/tour/etc... It may not apply to some young founder getting into YC who has no other track record of success; however, YC/Tech are politically connected so the mere fact one is accepted into YC, it might = extraordinary ability (in the eyes of the Gov. anyway)
J-1= I personally have never gone down this path in my legal career, so I am not 100% sure, but it is possible YC is part of an exchange program...if not, they should set up their own business education exchange and consider this especially for their fellowship program...boom legal hack (and except the fact I just gave it away, I could have applied to YC with the idea of hacking the legal system to get more visas for foreign founders joining US incubators...YC application hack)
J-1 is also quite openly (ab)used to bring employees over who do not qualify for a H1B or O-1.
Only important thing to remember is to pay the J-1 "student" otherwise they are (depending on origin country, but most I think) subject to a rule preventing said person from returning to the US within two years.
I think J-1's are 18 months max. Plenty of time to get a business up and running. By that time if the founder is successful (e.g. take on more investment) they could probably employ themselves with a H1B or E-2 ("investor") visa.
But I'm sure the J-1 has a bunch of issues concerning founding legal entities - this part I have no experience or knowledge of.
Also, J-1 being run by State rather than DHS/USCIS introduces some extra weird things.
http://j1visa.state.gov/participants/how-to-apply/sponsor-se...
The main requirement is the US company needs to have at least 25 full time employees -- not sure if YC qualifies.
No, athletes and entertainers are covered by the P-* visas:
P-1A Internationally recognized athletes.
P-1B Internationally recognized entertainers or members of internationally recognized entertainment groups.
P-2 Individual performer or part of a group entering to perform under a reciprocal exchange program.
P-3 Artists or entertainers, either an individual or group, to perform, teach, or coach under a program that is culturally unique.
I don't have one, but have been working professionally in this field for 4 years (I'm 22), and thus would not be eligible. To qualify for experience in lieu of a degree you require 3 years of work for each one year of university, so when I've been working for 12 years I could do that.
Interesting regulation, in Australia we have a "skilled occupations list" [0] which is a list of skilled work which specifically is in demand in Australia
[0] http://www.visabureau.com/australia/skilled-occupation-list....
IIRC there is some way to avoid the degree requirement if you have a skilled job and an equivalent # of years work experience.
Drawback is: non-permanent visa (so banks won't lend to you) & you can't have intent to stay (can't apply for greencard).
H-1B is dual-intent (i.e. not non-permanent) & better known to banks (3k vs. 120k granted per year).
Somewhere filed away I have a letter from an organization accredited by the US government proclaiming that I have degree-level experience. I value it almost as much as the certificate I obtained in/for Canada confirming I have conversational level English skills.
My understanding is that the quoted figures are indicative only and not backed by black-letter regulation. Of course, consult a lawyer. Or have a potential employer pay for you to consult a lawyer.
It has basically zero cost or effort for the employer: just need to get a Bureau of Labor statement that the offered salary is above market rates for role and location.
It sucks a little for the holder: you've got 10 days to leave the country if your employment ends, and you need to demonstrate every two years that you don't want to remain in the US permanently (yup, that's proving a negative). The renewals seem like they're pretty automatic, but the criteria aren't public and if the decision goes against you, you've again got 10 days to get out.
You don't need a lawyer to get an E3, but once you've got enough cash flow, it might be worth it for renewals and the potential for an appeal if your renewal (technically a new visa issue) is rejected.
Setup an organization that will:
* Generate awards and prizes in computer science and its sub-fields.
* It will have a journal that will be populated by a deep learning nn. Seeded by a few areas of interest a user will put in, it will then auto-generate articles.
* Setup a contracting service where you invest in it initially, then it pays it back to you as salary for whatever minimum amount of periods O-1 requires. (Bonus, use also for money laundering).
* Have a number of "critical" position and can only be filled by <firstname.lastname> person.
This is of course a joke. But that how some PR organizations works. There is of course the classic book "Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry" how the word sludge turned to biosolids. One of the techniques was to create a fake scientific journal and start publishing fake papers to it. Then convinced the dictionary publishers that biosolids is now a word and it is used by "scientists".
Incidentally I heard the court just ruled for the investors on that one but the only link I have so far is Lexis-Nexis paywalled.
Read a lot of immigration law news and you too can develop a jaundiced attitude! Seriously, it seems like things may be improving somewhat under Loretta Lynch's administration of the DoJ but it's a bit early to tell. http://trac.syr.edu is probably the best resource that doesn't require some sort of professional or academic subscription.
It's not a political ploy. If you try to make an end-run around the law, they're going to go after you to defend the rule of law. The law isn't a computer program that you can find a bug in and circumvent (well, most of the time). The law is purposefully broad and fuzzy, and is interpreted by human judges who will see through your little scheme.
It's not the prosecutor's or the judge's role to pass political judgement on the law. Their job is to uphold the laws that the people's representatives have passed.
They don't have the resources to prosecute more than a minority of violations, and their choices many times are based on politics.
Even at the federal level, we see the Justice department "deprioritizing" enforcement of drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana. I agree with the outcome in that particular case, but it's definitely pushing the limits of the intended separation of powers.
The biggest exceptions are finance and tax law right? Seems bizarre that they are though.
But so much of the complexity is from politicians abusing the tax code to support their pet social projects, to benefit some company in their constituency, to protect some industry from competition, etc. Then they have to make it even more complex and technical to undo the unintended negative effects of their original abuses. Everyone involved should really be ashamed.
Visa waiver[0] only allows for meetings, attending a conference, attend short-term unpaid training or negotiate a contract. Anything that really is 'working' - such as performing software engineering for a company (even your own) - is arguably outside of the visa waiver.
I'm assuming YC doesn't want founders to be outside of the law so I'm curious what their legal advisors have advised them.
[0]http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/visit/visa-waiver-p...
"Yes, I am negotiating a contract for investment. The work I am doing is part of the negotiation"
Its a serious crime to lie or misrepresent to a Federal DHS Officer
Stick strictly to the rules (both in letter and spirit). Living abroad and working on contracts internationally is very, very nice. Being able to travel to the countries where you are doing business so that you can have meetings, meet people, actually negotiate, etc is often a prerequisite for getting the contract. Don't screw over your future self.
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2012/02/what-visa-type-do-you-ne...
On your specific question, from feedback of my lawyer, if they have invested (read: spent) more than 100K in the company they are good to go. No requirement on how much you have raised (but obviously at least 100K).
So should't be a problem for a typical YC company.
[1] http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/fees/treaty.html
[2] http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers...
Note that if you have a founding team with mixed US-foreign residency and you have convertible notes involved, you may have to write a convincing letter of explanation to the embassy representative demonstrating why the convertible notes are effectively equity, and how the ownership breakdown would materialize under various "future funding event" scenarios.
My experience on the process is that you have to demonstrate a commitment in the business through the money you spent. When we got the Visa we was in the process of raising our seed round and the money in the bank account were pretty low (but we've already invested).
I've no experience on your point of mixed founding teams but there's something to be considered, when the percentage of ownership from foreign citizen goes under the 50% the E-2 Visa is no more valid. If you are already near the limit and you plan to raise in the US better save money and check other solutions (e.g: H1B, J1, O1).
Anyway, better to have a Visa Lawyer assisting you, the only important information is that there are a lot of opportunity.
Yes, sorry I basically handwaved over this as a given that tangible business commitment spend (office lease, furniture, etc.) is a prerequisite.
You can go for an investor visa option but it has it own quirks. With the current immigration system, foreign investors or founders should exercise a lot of caution as far the immigration system of US is concerned.
* - for example, rules of the E-2 state you have to invest your capital, then apply for the visa, which may or may not be granted. If you do it 100% by the book you also have to leave the country while it's under consideration (and leave your investment to run itself). They don't give any guidelines for specific dollar amounts. It then has to be renewed every 2-5 years (again, arbitrary decision) and does not lead to any permanent residency.
It's a mess and I would not recommend it as a long term path to living in the US.
There are lots of different options and none are all that good a fit for founders.
If you've got a year advance notice, you can set things up for the L-1. If you've got the ability to generate old media press and can raise $500k (rule of thumb), then O-1 is a good fit. If you're from the right country with $50k-150k, then E-2. If you're from Australia, E-3.
For the O-1 in particular, the three criteria we tend to use are media coverage, mentorship/conferences, and high salary for those who have been employed previously to becoming entrepreneurs.
YC asked the White House to make some tweaks to the O-1 to be a more straightforward path for founders, but the White House went in a different direction with something yet to be announced.
We have the Global EIR program which might be of assistance. Our flagship program in Boston: http://masstech.org/innovation-institute/projects-and-initia...
We have a pathway that takes advantage of cap-exemptions built into the H-1B program and partnerships with universities. It's pretty straightforward, and in exchange for a few months of part-time work, you'll draw a runway-extending salary and be sponsored for a work visa, after which you'll have a visa runway to raise capital more easily and then switch over to 100% startup time.
www.globaleir.org will have more in a short while.
As one of the founding partners of Unshackled (www.unshackled.co) I hope that we've been able to help immigrant founders build towards their dreams. It's still early, but in the past 7 months, we've supported 30 founders, across 13 teams, secured sponsorships of 5 different visa types and are working on 2 more (cap-exempt H1-B and H4 EAD). We are optimistic our model is good for teams with immigrant founders. Our next application closes on Oct 23 and hope that we can continue to support the best our country attracts.
More on our structure can be found here: http://unshackled.co/a-bigger-and-stronger-unshackled-is-her...
Of course you can create a US company. You can travel to the US to make connections and try to raise money, but for actually doing the work, the US seems like a pretty poor choice. Salaries are higher than pretty much anywhere else on earth. There is a shortage of good talent. Real Estate is expensive. Visas for foreign workers are practically impossible.
Obviously, some people live in countries where the infrastructure is not set up to really be successful. But there are lots of easier countries to start a business in (and get a visa) than the US.
Is there something I'm missing, or are people just buying into the "American dream" thing and assuming that they will be successful in the US?
The plan:
* get to the US first on B1, quite easy to get and relatively applicable for YC
* while there, set up a US company and open a branch in your own country and make it to employ you officially
* continue to investigate your options and if young file for J1 (internship) or if older file for O1 (achievements) with references from other founders/VCs
* don't mess with H1B
* worst case scenario if you didn't apply for other kinds of VISA - leave the US and come back periodically on B1 if need be and continue to be employed in your home country by a branch of your company in the US. after a year or so apply for L1 (inter-company transfer) which is almost automatic to get and allows the spouse to work too.
[1] http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/l-1-intracompany-transfe...
With E2, you get it for 5 years and no more paperwork every year. Then you renew it for another 5 years.
They work in Vancouver for 12 months and then get an internal company transfer using the L1 visa.
I would suggest
While getting letters from your advisers and investors is great, it's a common mistake to ONLY do people in your startup. You want to get recommendations from your previous employers and also academics who write about the industry you're in to justify your extraordinary ability. You don't want to put "founder" in your application (unless you're IPO'ed), you want to put "founder + professional skill".
The reason is that an O-1 is really meant for talent or skilled professionals. Being a founder is not necessarily a skill, it's just an indication that you've started a company. By applying as a founder, you miss the main purpose of the visa and that gets your application rejected.
edit: not a YC founder, just a founder.
It opens every year in October, and is free to apply. There are lots of scam sites that will offer to enter you in the lottery for payment, but you can do it free here: https://www.dvlottery.state.gov/
If you get accepted, it takes around 18 months from entering the lottery to actually entering the US, so you have to not be in a hurry.
The allocation of visas is quite odd, a bunch of countries are not eligible to enter (including UK, Canada, Mexico). Other countries have different quotas based on their region. As a result, those applying from Australia/NZ have a much higher chance of winning than those applying from Europe or Africa.
It's based on a formula. Regions which saw fewer immigrants are granted more visas.
Because Australians have access to the E-3 visa, relatively few of us who live and work in the USA become immigrants for the purpose of the Diversity Lottery calculations.
The H-1B visa was clarified to allow for founder sponsorship, assuming you can demonstrate an employer-employee relationship.
To demonstrate an employer-employee relationship you need to be able to show that you can be fired from your company, which is difficult to show if you're the only two founders on the board, and you each own 50% of the company.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but you really want to make sure you talk to a immigraiton lawyer before you try this. And in either case, H-1B visas are very difficult to get at this point :)
That said, the fact that the H-1B process is now a lottery - i.e. no matter qualified you are or how good your lawyer is, it's still a roll of the dice - makes it hard to recommend if you actually want any ability to plan for the future.
H-1B also puts more scrutiny on the company, so you'll probably need to have raised money (so you can prove you can pay yourself a market rate salary), have an office, etc.
OP should consider himself lucky for the contextual information rather than a stats dump.
EDIT: found it. https://angel.co/unshackled
What do you tell the immigration cop if they ask you if you're going to work in the US? Would you explain that you're going to work on your own company? Would they accept it? Or would you just say you're going for a vacation?
At least that's how it's been explained to me.
Quite a few Australian Startmate[2] founders have done this.
[1] http://geoffmcqueen.com/2011/09/28/e-3-visa-for-australians-... [2] http://www.startmate.com.au
I was lucky; my wife is from the US, and we've been married for longer than 2 years, which is the magical combination that makes it a lot easier - although obviously, that isn't particularly helpful if you aren't / aren't planning to get married to an US citizen.
If a person has demonstrated merit justifying a six figure job, why prevent them from entering your country and staying? They'll be a net win for your economy. It seems like this would solve a lot of immigration problems in high-skill fields.
I'm not saying we should casually make this possible without deep thought, but as an immigration idea it seems appealing to me. Simplify the system and reduce it to an issue of whether the person can pull their weight. I suppose the downside is that any rich person who owns a company can allow virtually anyone they want to immigrate, as a "fake employee" of the firm. There should be oversight. Full time employment required, and proof of compensation in the way of wages, IRS review.
I suppose it wouldn't help YC founders. Maybe another visa for founders of companies that have raised above a certain minimum amount, above a certain valuation?
(I haven't settled how I feel about immigration, so please don't take this as a statement of my stance one way or another. Just seems like a neat idea to explore.)
To put it in perspective, I've never heard anyone complain about people from other states moving to California and taking jobs from people who were born here, so why should we be so concerned about people moving from other countries?
I believe B1 is pleasure and B2 is business or vice-versa.
IANAL but I would recommend having a good source of funding and having an incorporated company and not having taken any kinds of exams such as TOEFL or SAT etc.
I received O-1 visa in February 2015 and I did it without lawyer. After I id it, I helped a couple of my friends and they received O-1 as well. Again, without lawyers.
All you need is: 1) learn USCIS docs (law itself and directions on the official site) 2) learn as many examples as possible (in my case I found some "DIY O-1 visa" zip in the internet and bought it – it was smth like $150, and although it didn't contain examples from tech, it helped a lot to get proper understanding) 3) examine all your professional life and recall all possible achievements. It cannot take 1 week or so. It should take at least month – because otherwise there is a chance that you miss something that could improve your application.
I have now a deep belief that lawyers in case of O-1 can be really helpful only to those founders who are too lazy. No lawyer will do the most important work on O-1 application for you: it's you who should recall your achievements (prizes, your articles, articles about your and your project, etc), it's YOU who should ask YOUR connection for reference letters, and so on. In many cases lawyers even can be a reason of failure of application: for example, they can miss something important in writing reference letter for you, or even make some fact errors. Or even worse, they can be reason of delay in delivering RFE response from USCIS to you, what can automatically lead to failed application since you then have no time to prepare a good answer. (All examples I mention here are from the real life...)
So my advice – don't be afraid to DIY, save $3-8k (SF lawyers' prices for O-1), learn the law and examples and DIY! Yes, this process is not really simple but it's definitely doable, and since nobody know your life better than you, nobody can prepare O-1 application better than you.
Of course here I should place disclaimer that I'm now professional lawyer and cannot give professional advice in legal areas:) And don't forget that for O-1 you should have a company that will hire you (actually in terms of law, it's the company who officially files the application for you -- the company is a petitioner in this process) – this may be the most difficult point for those who work for themselves.
A couple of additional comments:
- RFE process ("request for evidence" – when USCIS asks you to provide more information) always occurs, and you should carefully read eveyr USCIS's comment and respond to every comment very clear, this is the key of success.
- Once you file your application, if you're in US on your B1/B2 and don't go outside, you receive "pending" status which means that now you're purpose of stay changed and if it is needed, you are able to stay in the country more than the stamp in your passport indicates – you can stay until USCIS's decision on your application. And when you get RFE answer from USCIS, they give you a couple of months to prepare your response. So technically you can enter on B1/B2 and stay more than 6 months without breaking of any law. I stayed 7 months and it is ok (however, on my next travel to US, I had to wait for additional "clearance" checks in JFK – but it took 15 minutes or so).
- Visa != status. Visa is used only for entrance. You can enter on B1/B2, then get O-1 status and live on it. But once you leave US, you cannot return to the US. Because you need visa (stamp in your passport) which can be made only by US embassies outside the US. So you should go to US embassy in your country and get O1 visa (based on USCIS decision made previously – but be aware that here, once again, additional "clearance" checks can wait you).
Hope it will help somebody.
I wish good luck for those who try to DIY O-1 visa. In case you do it, it's a double-victory!
this is not true. I got my O-1 visa without any RFE.