Part 1 of a series about moving to the US. Jump to the main article here.
THE VISA
Lets get the most important thing out of the way upfront. It’s also the most complicated part of the move, even (/especially) if you have a legion of lawyers working on it for you. I’ll only cover the 2 visas that were relevant when I moved over the L1A or L1B and the H1B that are the 2 best routes to the USA if you are a skilled worker in an industry that needs good people. Both of these VISAs are non-immigrant, meaning that there is no right to citizenship when you land and that you might be kicked out at any time (i.e. for committing a felony).
L1A (managerial) or L1B (specialized knowledge)
This is for employees transferring to the US with their current company OR a company that they worked for in the last 3 years for a period of 1 year or longer. You don’t have to be moving into the exact same job in the US that you were doing prior at the firm, but there is a caveat that the US role has to require your specialist skills gained at the company that can't be easily sourced from a local market.
L1A vs L1B delta: The A version is for ‘managers’/supervisors and the B version is for all other employees and animals. The key difference is that the L1A lasts up to 7 years total before needing to move to a green card or return home compared against the 5 year cap on the L1B. Both visas are initially granted for 3 years, then extendable for 1 (L1B) or 2 (L1A) years at a time up to the max allowed. The last major difference is that an L1A doesn't have to go through such a song and dance to get a green card compared to the L1B category.
If you are moving from a management role (and this is loosely defined as “supervising employees”) you have to be moving into another management role to get an L1A VISA. Note that an org chart is required for the role outside of the US to represent your team and their professional experience as evidence of your managerial skills - it has to be a skilled team of works, not entry level jobs.
You require a degree (in specific US terminology, a 3 year bachelor degree or higher) for an L1 transfer OR an equivalent 10 years or so of experience. The latter is harder to prove for the L1 visa category however and more importantly, if you want to stay longer than the L1 VISA offers, you need to get a green card and this gets much more difficult if you do not have a formal higher level education qualification.
As mentioned, the L1x visa has to be renewed every 3 years which requires a trip outside of the US to an embassy and the lawyers highly recommended that you go to the embassy in your home country, meaning a trip back to London for the Brits. To add credence to this, one colleague did try to go to Mexico (he was native Chinese) to renew his visa, but got stuck there for 5 weeks as his passport was sent off to China for processing as the local embassy could not approve it.
What happens when the visa runs out of extension time? Either its back off home or in 99% of the cases, you already got a green card and have the right to reside permanently in the USA (although you are not a citizen still and can’t vote etc...). Also, commit a felony and its 50/50 if the judge kicks you out or sends you to jail.
You can transfer from an L1B to an L1A after arriving in the US (I actually did this in an effort to reduce the green card labor certification process and also extend the 5 year maximum visa period that I was approaching).
With a L1 visa, your spouse will get an accompanying L2 visa which piggy backs of the main L1 application, really needing nothing more than proof of marriage to get this and another check for the US immigration department. Kids (or other legal dependents) are equally as easy to apply for on top of the L1 visa. Once in the US, the spouse can apply for an EAD (employment authorization document) on top of the L2 visa, taking around 3 months to turn up and granting the right to work in the USA in any job for as long as the principal L1 visa holder remains in the US.
In my case, I personally applied for the L1B VISA initially and had it granted, then after I have arrived in the US, got married (in the US) and then Kirstin went back to England and started her L2 application process, moving out a few months later when her process completed.
L1 visas can be granted at any time of the year and have no cap set on the number of applicants according to the US government. However, the process can take up to 3 months depending on various factors.
H1B
Although the L1x visa is most common among friends I know, the majority of non-immigrant transfers to the US are actually here on H1B visas, mainly because they do not require experience with the company outside of the US to qualify for it.
The good news is that the requirements to get a H1B visa are significantly less - the applying company has to prove that they can pay your salary and also sponsor the immigration process
Education wise, a degree is needed (as per L1 visas), which leads to a good segue… In declaring your foreign academic qualifications to the US, you need to get them converted into an equivalent US qualification. This is generally a conversion that a ‘reputable’ company in the US does for you and usually returns the same type of qualification in the US that you obtained in your country of education. Saying this, for my 4 year BSc degree I received a US Masters degree in equivalent qualification which seemed a little odd at the time, but I assume that the company converting it took into account that a UK degree is focused nearly entirely on your subject of choice for the entire period, whereas the US degree starts off broader and you focus towards the end of your 3 years (to ‘choose a major’). Whatever the reason, it didn't make any difference to the application process. For further reading on this, Google “uk to us degree conversion” - converting UK degrees to the Grade Point Average (GPA) scheme in US terms seems to have widely different approaches depending on the company doing it.
Time wise, the H1B visa is a bit of a pain. A fixed cap of visas are granted each year, made available via a lottery in April of each year at which point its the wacky races of application process, rushing in the paperwork for new candidates and trying to knock Penelope Pitstop off the track. In past years, the cap was not reache, but these days with the hot tech market its a true gamble as to if you get in or not. Last year, the application process lasted 4 days, opening on the 1st April and closing on the 5th April.
If you are granted a H1B visa in the lottery, you still can’t start work until October of the same year, meaning that missing out of the lottery in April ‘14 might mean a best case employment date of Oct ‘15 if you are successful the following year - a long gap for sure.
Another major downside to the H1B visa is that it grants no right for your spouse to work. If he/she wants to get a job, they have to find a H1B visa sponsor and apply separately.
L1 Process
Concentrating on the L1x visa here only, 99% of people moving over to the US will use immigration attorneys for the purpose of preparing the paperwork and handling the weasel words that are needed here to make the move as their company is footing the bill.
The process starts with the attorneys putting together a dossier for your application which falls into 1 of two camps: an individual company application (for small firms or companies that don’t have a major US immigration flow) or a blanket visa. The blanket visa is in theory quicker to get through the paperwork machine as no qualification of the sponsor company has to be done, although this isn't always the case… These forms are known as the I-129 (Petition for a non-immigrant visa) and there is an additional L supplement included.
With this initial application, the sponsor company has to include a bunch of other info - financial reports, organization charts, marketing bumf and info about the size of the US workforce etc… For a giant corporation, a print out of the website is almost all that is needed (a literal print out...) but for a smaller company some actual leg work has to be put into create a strong image of the sponsor company. Usually at this step the person you will report to in the US will also write down stuff about duties, specialized skills needed and why they can’t employ a current resident of the USA to do this role. At this stage however, as this is a non-immigrant visa, its rather cursory and does not go into with much depth - a much more complete write-up is needed if moving to a green card later on.
This I-129 initial package and the application fee of ~1k USD is sent off for processing and you sit back and wait for an answer. Assuming the immigration attorneys are involved, this paper work is probably not made available to you until its been accepted and returned to the sponsor company who will forward it on to you. The returned for is the I-797 and is your passport to the US - do not loose this! Its needed everytime you enter the US.
The turnaround time for this initial process can range from 15 days up to 3 months. There are 2 factors in this:
a) If the application is on an L1 blanket visa, then whilst the company doesn't need to be individually vetted as a sponsor, it does go through wait of 3-7 weeks depending on how backlogged the process is.
b) If the application is an individual company sponsorship, the process can take up to 3 months. However! With a premium processing fee of 1.2k USD added to the pot, this is brought down to 15 days, making it a super quick turn around to get an answer from the US government in this case.
Now, it is possible that the application is returned with a request for more evidence (be it degree qualification, salary in the UK or other details). Majority of immigration attorneys however create such a large amount of paper work at this step that I don’t think the immigration department has the heart to truly go through it all.
Here is a picture of the documentation stack used for my L1 visa. A copy has to be taken into the embassy with you, although I highly doubt anyone will study it in detail unless you have some exceptions that need to be looked into.
Once the paper work has been returned to the sponsor company, it is sent over to the applicant and you make an appointment at the US Embassy in your home country to get your passport stamped and a final vetting in person to check photo ID etc...
This appointment can vary from 3 days wait up to 9 weeks (as I had) depending on the time of year - hit the H1B rush after April and the backlog is pretty long. Usually however you can get a slot within a few weeks. Note, you have to call a premium rate number to book this appointment which is pretty annoying.
On embassy day, you head down to London Embassy just off from Hyde Park and then queue outside the building for ~1 hour whilst you go through security. Get there early for your appointment! In addition, you can’t take any electronic items into the embassy (phones, laptops, memory sticks or car key fobs) so make sure you either leave them at home or deposit them at the pharmacy just up the road for a few pounds in a secure locker. The place we used is below:
With the paperwork, you need _US_ sized passport photographs (NOT UK SIZED ONES!) - not a lot of places do these and we ended up going to a photo store before our appointment just around the corner from the embassy. Processing time was ~ 5 mins, although there was a 10 min queue when we arrived at 9:30am.
FYI, the wait times for the embassy’s are available on the net (plus the processing time when they keep your paper work):
Once you get into the embassy, you sit on a row of chairs waiting for your number. First time around, this took ~1hr, followed by a 5 minute grilling at a window, another 30 min sit down and finally a 1 minute paperwork pickup once the embassy had performed whatever background checks they do with your passport + documentation. There are drinks and snacks at the back that can be bought with GBP case only (IIRC, all drinks / food is also forbidden to be taken in).
At this point, you leave all your docs at the embassy (the visa is not actually in the passport yet), pay 30$ to a courier service on your way out and wait a week or so until they post it back to you.
Congratulations, you can now move to the US!
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