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Comment by zmitri | Hacker News Reader

Well, I thought about it for a while, and realized it wasn't worth it waiting N years to get a green card. I filed a petition to go from H1B status to B2 tourist and asked for 3 months to stay in the country to finish up my affairs. After that I left.

As a Canadian, I may enter the US for up to 6 months at a time without requiring a visa, but am I not allowed to work. So when I do visit, I make sure to only visit friends and I make sure not to do any work. I am currently in Toronto, but next month will be taking a vacation to the USA.

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I wonder what is considered "work" and how could it be tracked. Whenever I travel abroad, I bring my laptop, and I always end up answering a few emails and writing code (which is what I do when I go to the office here in the US). If you have a company registered in Canada and you come to the US for 6 months, who is to stop you from sitting at a computer and typing away, as long as no money changes hands in the US?

Exactly.

Well, by the same token there isn't much stopping a Canadian from coming into the US and working as a fry chef. Laws are for honest people, and people who attract attention.

That's different, as the restaurant is a US business employing a foreign national without a visa. In my example, the business was outside the US, and no money changed hands here.

Ah, I took your hypothetical as a proposal for an enforcement loophole, not a legal loophole.

From what I remember reading a US embassy website: If you are telecommuting/teleworking for a foreign corporation not connected in the usa ('non us source income'), you can do that even if you don't have a US work authorization, as long as that corporation is not one you have a controlling interest in (not self-employed). So if you have a spouse who is under a non-work authorized visa, they can still telework for a polish corporation for example. Talk to lawyers and so on before you actually do something like this.

> I am currently in Toronto, but next month will be taking a vacation to the USA.

If you're not going to a common tourist destination for two weeks, have fun at the border.

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