www.vidagolaw.com

Since I launched my website almost a year ago, I frequently get questions that come to me via my “Ask Vida” button.  I personally answer these questions from visitors to my website and thought it would be helpful to post some commonly asked questions here and share the answers with everyone.

One of the most common questions is, “How do I get a work visa?”  Work-based visas normally require the sponsorship of an employer.  Therefore, you generally have know the company you will be working for before you can obtain a work visa because they have to submit the application letting USCIS know that they wish to hire you.

Oftentimes, the person asking the question also asks, “Can you get me a visa?”  As an immigration attorney, I do work with a number of companies to help them bring foreign workers to the U.S., however, we do not do the actual matching of employer to employee.  There are occasions where a company may not have an immigration attorney and the company asks the potential employee to find an immigration attorney to work on the petition, but they have typically already found each other before we are retained to help in the immigration process. So, we can either initially be brought in to the case by the employee or the employer.

Note though that there are certain situations where a person may not have to find an employer.  In some cases you may “self-sponsor”.  An E-1 Treaty Trader or E-2 Treaty Investor visa can be considered to be a self-sponsored visa as the person may have started a company or is planning to start a company involved in trade to the U.S. or opening a business within the U.S.  A wide variety of businesses may qualify for the E-2 visa for example: restaurants, dental practices, technology consulting, and various types of retail businesses.

Another self-sponsoring situation may arise for an L-1 Intracompany Transferee.  An L-1 visa allows a foreign company to transfer or send a manager or executive to the U.S. in order to establish a U.S. office.  Therefore the CEO or owner of a foreign company may use this type of visa to “self-sponsor” himself or herself to the U.S.

Other self-sponsored possibilities fall in the immigrant visa category more commonly known as green cards.  One option is the EB-1 Priority worker visa category.  This category is for a person with “extraordinary ability”.  Persons qualifying for this type of green card typically have received significant national or international recognition and awards and have often been published in their fields.

Another self-sponsored green card is the EB-5 Immigrant investor category.  An EB-5 green card typically requires a $1 million dollar investment.

This is intended to be a short overview of the possibilities and is not an exclusive list.  More info about each of the categories can be found by clicking on the links.  Also check out our “Quick Link to Immigration” page for a list of various types of visas.

President Bush announced this past week that nationals from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, the Republic of Korea, Lithuania and the Slovak Republic will be added to the list of Visa Waiver eligible countries.  The Visa Waiver Program allows visitors from approved countries to travel to the U.S. for business or pleasure for 90 days or less without having to obtain a visa.  Twenty-seven countries currently on the list are: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.  The State Department has noted that it will take a bit of time for the new countries to be initiated into the program, but they expect visitors from the newly added countries to be able to take advantage of the visa waiver program sometime in mid-November.  A machine-readable passport and registration online through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) will be required to participate in the Visa Waiver Program.