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IANAL. Can non-citizens run US-based companies? If yes, can't this be done through a company, then OP would just be forbidden from drawing a salary from this entity?

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Yes . Non citizens can run us based companies as long as they do that from outside the US. If they want to come to the US to run their US based company, then they have to decide on a visa. There is E2 which is a business based visa but only for certain countries. H1-B is essentially a skilled worker visa and it is assumed that you would have a company and a boss who would file for that visa.

Run your work through companies in Canada and Us. You are employee of Canadian consultantcy which happens to own stock and pay you on the payroll. Your quarterly meetings are nothing other than paper work.

> If they want to come to the US to run their US based company, then they have to decide on a visa.

Only if they want to get paid in any way, right? Can a person run their company w/o drawing any profits (i.e. no W-2 needed) and not have to go through the visa process? If I were to look for a way out of the situation ("I want people to pay so that I have money to maintain the infrastructure"), this is how I'd try to approach it ("create an entity that is allowed to accept money from other sources and use that money only to run the infrastructure").

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