Comment by nandemo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nandemo | Hacker News Reader

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IANAL, but say you're a manager of BigSouthAmericanCorp (maybe Euro/Asian, etc, your mileage may vary) going to a meeting with BigAmericanCorp. Then you can use the Business visa, which is the same as Tourism visa. As long as you're not working for an American employee, it's OK to be in US on work temporarily.

So if I were going to US to work on my own business temporarily, I'd either go as a tourist or say, "Oh, I'm from Nandemo Ltd., and will go to a business meeting with SP_ Corp, here's their invitation letter". That's similar to what I did when I went to US for a job interview at the headquarters of X Corp. trying to get a job at their Tokyo office. If I had said I was coming to a job interview they wouldn't let me in; even though I had no intention to work in US.

One must be out one's mind to volunteer unnecessarily detailed information to the immigrations officer. Given that there are millions of illegal immigrants actually working for American employers and not getting deported, the odds that a web developer working at home would be deported seems pretty slim.

First, you are confusing visas. The tourist visa is not the same as the visa waiver. There is a tourist visa, it's called B-2 and it does not allow you to do any business or work. Visiting with the visa waiver program means visiting without a visa.

Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. It does not allow you to work.

See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html

Exactly. There's a fine line between a business trip, and something that requires a work visa.

I'd imagine that the best way for a foreigner to work in the US on non-US projects is if a body-shop (possibly owned by them - I think most people can own a US company) hires them, then subcontracts them out to the offshore employer. The question is how they get everything set up while they don't have a work visa. I wonder if a business visa would allow them to set the paperwork up? Anyway, it's madness.

I'm not confusing the visas, though I probably could have made it clearer. I'm not talking about what you can do with the visa waiver. I specifically mentioned the case where the visitor is from South America, because there's no visa waiver for us.

For people who are require to have visas, the tourist visa and the business visa are issued together. When you get to the port of embark, you tell the immigration officer whether you're coming for business or pleasure.

http://www.workpermit.com/us/employer_b1_b2.htm

> Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences.

Yeah, that's the situation I described.

> It does not allow you to work.

...for an US entity. If you're going for business then you're working, right? Anyway, even if it's not specifically allowed, there's a gray area.

> See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html

I read that, I think he was quite naive and uninformed. He should have done what I described. "I'm working for DutchCorp, and will go to a business trade event, here's the invitation". Then he would make sure the event organizers would not pay him directly. They would pay his Dutch company, and he would get paid in Netherlands, not in US.

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