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Comment by cgh | Hacker News Reader

I worked for a large Silicon Valley company as a foreign national (Canadian) and I flew down at least once a quarter. When I said I was going for “unpaid business”, I was questioned enough that it led me to ask my employer to get me the proper visa so I could legally work because it felt like I could get denied entry on the whim of the immigration agent. It felt uncertain and was kind of stressful.

My advice is, don’t risk it. Get the visa to allow you to work for at least the time you are there. I ended up getting a full TN visa but I believe there are short-term work visas for this circumstance as well.

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Same here, also got a TN because the questioning becomes very uncomfortable as both sides of the conversation usually are not stupid. Some friends in a similar situation were turned around at the border which can also lead to getting barred from ever entering the US again.

To be clear, an H-1B visa is petition based so unless the CBP officer has reason to believe that something is amiss, the officer is not authorized to ask to see a copy of the petition; that clearly crosses a line. The TN is not petition based so every time a TN worker seeks admission, the CBP officer is authorized to re-adjudicate the TN application.

It's technically true that a TN may be reviewed at every entry true but I have personally crossed the border dozens of times with TN status and I know of many others that may live in Canada but have a day job in the US. It's a much easier entry vs. tourist/business visas. An H1B may or may not be petition based depending on your citizenship (e.g. for Canadians it's not) and either way any specific trip is either for business or leisure and certainly the immigration officer has authority to deny entry. EDIT: Sorry I misread that as a B1 or B2. H1B is different. Also much harder to get vs. a TN (which is just easy process at the border).

I believe even with the visa it’s still up to the immigration agent. I came close to trouble once when asked for my H1B visa petition document (not the visa in the passport). I had a photocopy and was told that wasn’t enough and although they’d let me in this time they expected to see the original in future. I also travelled with a letter from my employer explaining where I worked, job title etc as extra documentation just in case to derisk further.

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