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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

Okay, first things first. Apply for a greencard. I know it's a long process, it's expensive, and it's very invasive but do this first. People assume they don't qualify and don't even bother asking. But the US still has the highest immigration of all countries, only the UK is a distant 2nd. So obviously, people are getting in everyday.

Now, contact the US embassy in your country. Get all your paperwork together, set an appointment, pay the fees, and wait. Depending on the country you are coming from can be the difference between success and failure. Each country has quotas and some are filled immediately (Mexico, for example) and some go unmet (Switzerland, because no one ever leaves switzerland)

So do all the paperwork, fill in the envelope and mail it, and wait. That's all you really can do.

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This is lousy advice. It's not as if just anyone can "apply for a green card". You need to have a sponsor who is either a relative and US citizen, or you are already employed by a US company on a work visa and they are willing to sponsor your green card application. (I am in the second category.)

Even if you have an employer willing to sponsor your green card application, the preliminary paperwork can take over a year before you're officially in the green card pipeline. How long you have to wait depends on your country of origin. Canadians can expect to wait at least two years, Indians and Chinese five years or more. But the kicker is that if you lose your job or change companies while you're in the pipeline, the whole process restarts! (Unless you're in the final stage, but that's comparatively short compared to the whole process.) That is, if you can find a new job. If you can't, you have to leave the US.

The US is unique among western countries in not have a way for skilled immigrants to get into the country unless they first have a sponsor. The US work visa program effectively creates a class of indentured laborers as their continued residency in the US is entirely dependent on their employers.

For Canadians, there's also TN-1 visa, which is a simplified way to get a work permit for a year. It has limitations compared to H1-B in terms of occupations, but it is much simpler to get. You need to have a letter from the company stating that they intend to employ you.

Now, how that relates to startups and whether your own corporation can sponsor you - I honestly do not know.

Sure, TN is easy to get (I've had it) but there are two major restrictions:

1. You cannot apply for a green card on TN visa 2. It has to be renewed annually, and you have to demonstrate continued strong ties to Canada (bank accounts, family, etc.), so US immigration would no doubt get suspicious if you kept renewing

> You cannot apply for a green card on TN visa

Actually, you can:

http://www.naftatnlawyer.com/applying-for-green-card-tn-st/

> It has to be renewed annually

There's a 3 year TN now:

http://www.naftatnlawyer.com/nafta-tn-blog/2008/10/16/three-...

If you're Canadian, I suggest subscribing to the Grasmick.com newsletter and poking around the site. Lots of good info there.

If you're Canadian, I suggest subscribing to the Grasmick.com newsletter

Not sure if the newsletter is up to date but I noticed that the most recent items on Grasmick.com's News section dates back to 2001!

The world of immigration into the US has really changed quite a bit since 2001, post-9/11 especially. For a start the INS doesn't even exist anymore and was replaced with the DHS.

So if the rest of his information is from this era and pre-DHS then it's pretty much worthless.

The newsletter is indeed up to date. For example, it's where I learned about the new 3 year TN back when it was approved in Oct 08.

For some silly reason he's basically abandoned the website and what used to be incredibly helpful forums.

Thanks for the info. Things have obviously changed since I had my TN in 2006.

However, looking at the green card application process on the TN it doesn't look like it's any easier than it is on an H1B.

Two years for Canadians? Citation?

The lawyers that I've talked to have told me the backlog is about six to seven years long and have not mentioned any special treatment for Canadians.

I've heard that you can get through faster if you have advanced degrees, but nothing about nationality.

Source is the lawyer handling my paperwork. http://www.trackitt.com/ also has info by nationality.

I may want to talk to your lawyer. My employer's lawyer and my own lawyer have different information. Nevertheless, if we can trust the stats on that website you are right.

Can you send me his or her info? You can get my contact details from my HN profile page.

The EB-1 does not require a sponsors, as far as I understand.

So you mean that I can just apply for a generic green card. As far as I know you have to be eligible for some certain types of green cards. I have tryed with the lottery but no luck there.

I have browsed through the various ways to get a green card and as far as I can tell the only way I can get it is either through getting a job at some company in the US or winning the lottery.

Basically there are 3 routes. Marriage, Job, Investment.

Sadly, a startup is at least two of these and still doesn't qualify :/

I guess when you're talking "highest immigration" you're talking in absolute terms. Both Canada and Australia have significantly higher _rates_ of immigration.

I'm starting the green card process, and fwiw, the lawyer tells me it takes a minimum of 16 months, with 2 years being typical.

Yes, I mean highest in absolute numbers. I don't even know what a rate you speak of since you need an X and Y to have a rate. Is that there are more people applying now than last year or do you mean more immigrants as a percentage of the population?

More immigrants as a percentage of the population.

You are comparing one country with 300 million people with one with 25 million. Of course the numbers are going to reflect better on Australia.

For a lot of countries, the green card backlog is > 7 years. YMMV

Yes, I'm in the US on a work visa, and I'm talking about the EB-2 category, which has less of a backlog, apparently. The EB-3 is less preferred, and is in that 7+ years range.

Just to clarify, the period of time it takes for a green card application to process is a factor of:

a: which kind of green card you're getting (employment, family or lottery based are the main ones)

b: where you are applying from (some states will process stuff exponentially faster than others, some processing centers are slow right now due to office re-orgs, and finally anything overseas is going to take you x*4, where x is the time locally)

c: the quality of your lawyer.

This is patently wrong advice. Do not do this, as it will invalidate all visa-waiver travel for EVER.

You should only apply for a visa when you are reasonably sure you will get it (i.e. have an offer of employment, funds or family to sponsor you).

Actually depending on where you are from you can also apply for the Greencard Lottery. Free way to get a Greencard. http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/

Applying to the Greencard lottery puts you on some kind of blacklist for US visas. Happened to a friend from Romania years ago. No idea if this is official policy or not, but he always got his visas refused afterwards, even after careful preparation. Hope things have changes.

Doesn't surprise me - they refuse you for a visa if they have any suspicion that you're trying to immigrate. One time I was entering London and the customs guy was in a bad mood and decided to grill me. I made the mistake of saying I had a girlfriend in London that I was seeing as part of the trip - after that I got extensive questioning. Guy was halfway in a bad mood, but halfway having a girlfriend might be reason to immigrate in his eyes.

Nowdays regardless of what I'm doing, I won't say anything that'd remotely indicate that I might ever want to live in any country I'm visiting, lest I get in more questioning and hassle. And I'm an American, mind you, not exactly the country that people get the most skeptical screening process from.

If I was from a Baltic country or developing country, I'd try to casually work into conversation that I had serious commitments back home - good job, mortgage, graduate studies, serious relationship, things like that. (Actually, now that I think about it, that's what finally got me through that London questioning - when I mentioned I had to be back in Boston for my studies starting in late August, it was around July at the time IIRC, roughly five years ago)

With tourist visas you need to demonstrate non-immigrant intent. If the immigration officer was aware that your friend was actively applying for a greencard (ie, they're intending to move to the US), they'd have to go to extra lengths to show that they fully intended to leave whilst on that tourist visa (ie, they're planning on visiting the US).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent

I know loads of people who have applied for the Greencard Lottery (a couple won Greencards) and none of them have ever had a problem getting into the US. I'd suggest the immigration service had other issues with your friend.

On the Visa Waiver there is (used?) to be a box to tick if you had been denied a visa. I would imagine being denied a visa and not winning a Greencard are two quite different things.

The greencard system is a mess in this regards. I'm surprised your friend actually tried to travel to the US since one of the first things they tell you once you've started the application is not to travel to the US until you have your greencard.

It's some sort of twisted logic where ICE thinks that you'll try to jump the line if you travel to the US on a non-immigrant visa.

This has simply not been true for me. I participated in DV lottery for quite a few years, and later on had multiple visits to US Embassy and never have had any kind of problems with getting my visas approved whatsoever.

I think your friend might be having some other issues, not the DV lottery.

Is there more evidence to it than one case? My parents applied for the lottery and had no problems getting tourist visas afterwards even though we have a lot of relatives living there. And Google does not seem to know about this problem either.

US still favors family based immigration system . So "highest" doest count in this context when compared to points ( skill) based system in other countries like UK.

Depends on how you look at it. With "family" based immigration, someone has basically vouched for your character. In the US, family means you are financially responsible for this person being let in this country. If they can't fend for themself, you shelter, clothe, and feed them. They are really serious about it and it requires you meet income, savings, and property thresholds.

The UK sort of has both, family and skills can get you in. Recently, they have started to de-emphasize the family visas.

With points, you are at the mercy of the market of the host country. The UK has, recently, restricted the high-tech industry in some areas, but hairdressers are still in demand under the points system. So someone with a BSc may actually be less qualified than someone that went to beautician's school under this scheme.

I always wondered how that works. For example, my great-grandmother from my father's side was born in Brooklyn. And then they have decided to return to Europe. I must be one of the few that has heritage reversed.

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