My Goals Are for My Business

Overview of Topics

We provide comprehensive immigration services, advice, and counsel to business owners, human resource professionals, foreign student advisors, entrepreneurs, and individuals worldwide. Our scalable delivery model can support both small—and large-scale immigration programs.

We work hard to understand your organization’s unique needs and build the appropriate team of immigration professionals to achieve the desired objectives, whether that is meeting your staffing needs, building a culture of compliance, securing resident status for key employees, or all of the above. Our clients receive personalized attention and direct attorney access.

Securing the Staffing You Need

In today’s economic environment, with historically low unemployment and significant gaps in the availability of highly skilled workers, particularly within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, no U.S. employer can survive without drawing upon the global talent pool which includes both foreign students, refugees and family-based immigrants. U.S. law severely restricts the number of such individuals who can come to the U.S. each year. We work closely with employers to understand their need to supplement their labor force and help them identify pools of labor within the nonimmigrant and immigrant workforce.

Transferring Talent from Abroad

While America’s immigration system is in desperate need of updating, there are several non-immigrant visa categories that can help employers fill vacancies within their work force. Among these are the following:

Foreign nationals may come to the U.S. to transact business on behalf of their foreign employer, so long as they don’t engage in productive employment, and the benefit of their presence here accrues to their foreign employer.

Many countries have treaties with the U.S. which allow their citizens to come to the U.S. to engage in trade between countries. See Treaty List . The trade must be significant with at least 50% or more of the trade taking place between the U.S. and the treaty country. Executives, managers and other essential workers may also come as long as their employer has registered with the U.S. Consulate and the employee shares the same nationality as their employer.

Many countries have treaties with the U.S. which allow their citizens to come to the U.S. to engage in investment. See Treaty List. The investment must be significant (which is not defined), cannot be marginal, and must potentially generate employment for individuals beyond the investor and his or her immediate family. Executives, managers and other essential workers may also be transferred so long as their employer has registered with the Treaty Officer at the U.S. Consulate in their home country, and the employee shares the same nationality as their employer.

Very similar to the H-1B visa program described below, the E-3 allows more access to temporary work visas for individuals from both Australia and Singapore.

  • 85,000 new visas are available each year for individuals who possess the U.S. equivalent of a four-year bachelor’s degree in a specialty occupation, defined as a degree focused on a particular career or occupation, such as accounting, engineering, computer science, biotechnology, etc.
  • 65,000 of these are generally available, with 20,000 additionally available to individuals with U.S. graduate degrees (called the Masters’ Cap)
  • Cap exempt employers such as colleges, universities and other certain not for profit organizations affiliated with such organizations are typically exempt from these annual limits.
  • These visas are allocated through a lottery which takes place in the first quarter of each calendar year, and become available on October 1st, the beginning of the government’s fiscal year.
  • Once obtained, an individual is typically authorized to work for up to three years, can renew their status for up to six years, can transfer their employment between employers, and if pursuing permanent resident status can often obtain extensions beyond the six-year limitation.

Click here to see our responses to Frequently Asked Questions about the H-1B Process.

Twice a year the U.S. provides a pool of visas for lesser skilled workers needed to support our agricultural and tourism industries, as well as other temporary or intermittent jobs.

Companies with offices abroad can transfer workers to the U.S. to receive specialized training under certain circumstances.

A number of programs also exist that allow individuals to come to the U.S. for medical training, academic fellowships, to learn particular vocations, and even serve as nannies. Such individuals are typically limited to an 18 month duration, and many are subject to a foreign residence requirement that requires them to return to their home country for a minimum of two years before returning to the U.S.

Individuals engaged to marry a U.S. citizen may be admitted to the U.S. for the purpose of getting married here. While this is a temporary visa, it is processed much like a permanent resident visa. Upon entry to the U.S., the fiancé/fiancée is entitled to work authorization, but the couple must marry within 90 days of arrival and cannot later adjust based on a marriage to anyone other than the petitioning U.S. citizen.

This visa allows companies with operations both inside and outside the U.S. to transfer key talent, particularly managers and executives.

Similar to the L-1A visa, this category allows non-managers who possess specialized knowledge of a company’s operations, products, or processes, to come to the U.S. to work for an affiliated company. Click here to see our responses to Frequently Asked Questions about the L-1 Process.

This visa allows both academics and researchers in private companies who employ at least three researchers, the ability to obtain temporary work visas for foreign nationals.

Click here to see our responses to Frequently Asked Questions about Business Immigration Goals.

Employing Foreign Students

Most full-time college and graduate international students are eligible for 12 months of employment authorization to engage in practical training related to their course of study. There are two main types of practical training: Curricular Practical Training (CPT) and Optional Practical Training (OPT).

CPT employment authorization is for students in programs that require practical training as part of the curriculum. CPT is only authorized while the student is still pursuing the degree. OPT employment authorization can occur either before or after the degree is completed and is available regardless of whether practical training is part of the curriculum.

Students are generally limited to 12 months of OPT. However, students who have completed one year or more of full-time CPT are not eligible for any OPT.  Part-time CPT authorization is unlimited and does not affect OPT.

Students are typically not eligible for CPT or OPT until they have completed one year of full-time studies in their degree program. An exception exists for graduate students whose programs require earlier training. Such graduate program may authorize ‘day 1’ CPT.

Finally, students who have received a degree in a science, technology, engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) field qualify for an additional 2 years of OPT, known as the STEM OPT Extension. STEM OPT involves some additional employer requirements as compared to standard OPT: the employer must be enrolled in E-Verify, collaborate with the student to prepare a Training Plan, and report any material changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Transferring Talent Within the U.S.

Once a foreign national has won a coveted H-1B visa through the visa lottery, he or she is entitled to up to six years of employment. While employment is tied to a specific job, the employee is a free agent to change from one employer to another. What drives that decision is a combination of compensation and gaining a commitment from the employer to sponsor them for a green card. Individuals from India and China, countries with extraordinarily long waiting lists for green cards, are the most aggressive in seeking sponsorship, and will often transfer their H-1B to another employer, if they don’t sense a commitment forthcoming for green card sponsorship.

Helping Key Employees Secure Green Cards

Before a company can sponsor an individual on a temporary H or L visa for a green card (also known as permanent residence) the employer must demonstrate that they cannot find a qualified U.S. worker who can do the job. That process is known as Labor Certification, or PERM, and is done through the U.S. Labor Department. Click here to see FAQ on PERM. Individuals who qualify as multi-national managers, executives or other extraordinary ability aliens are exempt from this process. Others who can demonstrate that it is in the “national Interest” to waive the labor market test can also bypass this process and go directly to the employer petition. There are a limited number of green cards available each year, and per-country limits, have created a 15 to 30-year waiting list for individuals born in India and the People’s Republic of China. Because of these lengthy waits, employees from these two countries are usually quite aggressive in pushing employers to sponsor them. Failure to do so can often result in the employee moving on to another employer more willing to undertake such sponsorship. Individuals from other countries typically face no more than a two to three year wait to receive their green card. Click here to see FAQ on EB-2/3.

Building a Culture of Compliance

Immigration Compliance for businesses can be scary and frustrating. A company’s Human Resources Department is responsible for all of the following:

  • Verifying (and in some instances re-verifying) the employment eligibility of each new employee
  • Maintaining a public access file for each of its H-1B workers demonstrating:
    • How their wages were determined
    • How their employees are being paid the appropriate wage
    • How those wages cover the specific job site
  • Ensuring that any H-1B employee is provided with an offer of return transport back to their home country
  • Engagement in specialized recruitment for those temporary workers the company is seeking to sponsor for long-term employment.
businessman sitting leaning on desk in office

The risk of I-9 and Wage and Hour Audits by either DOL or USCIS can often keep HR professionals awake at night.

Building a culture of Compliance begins with an Immigration Checkup. We offer each of our corporate immigration clients who utilize our service on a regular basis a FREE Annual Immigration Checkup, during which we review the status of your various compliance programs and offer suggestions on how to best structure and maintain them. We also offer audit services and assistance in training HR teams to build better compliance programs for an additional fee.

Case Tracking and Volume Pricing

We have extensive experience in supporting enterprise-wide immigration programs for both national and multi-national companies. As such, we offer volume pricing and unique support tools such as state of the art forms systems and case tracking through our Docketwise Portal feature. We have assisted companies in conducting comprehensive U.S. wage surveys and occupational code analysis across a broad range of geographies. We have also helped some of our larger employers design policies for fair, predictable, and cost effective sponsorship frameworks for both the employer and their workers.

See our Click here to see FAQs for Employer, where you will find answers to come of the most common questions employers ask us as immigration lawyers.