Re:I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work fo...
by tvcx on Monday January 20, 2025 @11:57AM
(#42770568)
I’m a citizen of an EU country that meets the Visa Waiver criteria. I’m working for a startup based in the USA. I’m one of the earliest employees, hence a great asset to the company. I’m considering emigrating sometime in the future but I’m unsure what needs to happen to enable it. Is a company-sponsored visa the only option? How inclined are startup founders to sponsor work visas? I’m convinced this is not attainable now, we’ve got a product to build, I’m only speculating for “when we make it”. Separately, how are startup employees treated when it comes to trying to convert the work visa to a green card? The definitions for EB-1, EB-2 are very interpretable. Thank you!
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Re:I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work fo...
by proberts on Monday January 20, 2025 @01:34PM
(#42771607)
In my experience, because of the competition for talent, startups often are more open to employing foreign nationals than many large, established companies. The terms EB-1, EB-2, etc. refer to green card categories and the green card process takes a while so that's probably not the initial path toward working in the U.S. The likely visa options will be the L-1 (as a transferee) or an O-1 and oftentimes founding engineers or early stage employees qualify for the O-1 or can take steps to qualify. Both the L-1 and O-1 require company sponsorship.