Intro to Start Up Visas | Immigration Attorney Kelly Decsy

How are you guys doing today? Lovely day here in San Francisco, yeah? And I heard every single one of you is international except this one gentleman right here in the front.

USA.

USA. Well, hopefully soon you will all be residents of the United States. Obviously you're here at a university taking programs and studying here. I'm assuming most of you, your plan is to stay in the United States. Is that correct?

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Never go home. No, I'm kidding. See your parents. They love you, I promise. Okay guys, so U.S. immigration law is super confusing. I know. Nobody really understands it. If you Google it, it gets even more confusing. There is tons of different visa options. Each one goes to a specific person. It might sound like it applies to you, and then you realize it completely doesn't. So let's get started. This is our presentation for various visas that we can do for startups, entrepreneurs, and the such. They've handed me a little gizmo. There we go. So this is about our firm. We are definitely a full-service firm here. We are here in the Valley. We're also in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York. We have offices also around the world, which can help you depending on where you're coming from and if you want to bring other people in. I guess the point of being an entrepreneur is that you're going to grow a business and you want to bring other people into the country to be able to work for you, right? That's the goal. Big, big company. Lots of people. We have a huge record of serving the startup and tech communities. Entrepreneurs just like yourself. We have a 99% approval rate on our visas. So we're not the law firm that's going to take any case and just take your money. We will tell you, no, go back and try again. No, you need this, this, and this. Once you have it, come back to us. Immigration is a long process and it's an expensive process. So there is no point and wasting your money prematurely if you can wait 6 months and get the requirements that you need for the visas. What sets us apart? We're definitely team-oriented and we like to look at your overarching goals. So whether this is your first visa, we like to make a whole process for you for that eventual permanent residency, which I assume if you want to stay here, that's going to be your end goal. We also do a lot of education—

Yeah.

Educational content like I'm here today speaking in front of you. We do do this at universities around the world, film festivals, all sorts of places that we're here to talk to people and educate them on their options. Why is immigration important to your business? Well, since you guys are all foreign, then it is important for you to stay here for your business. So that should be kind of, you know, a no-brainer there. Why immigration matters now. So maintaining proper visa status is crucial. Don't say, I'll think about it later. Oh, okay, I don't quite know what my status is. If you overstay, really bad things can happen. They are very strict on their immigration laws here in America. So don't try to put it off. Really understand and know your options and know the visa you're on and what you can and can't do when you're coming in and out of the country. Being able to talk to the border officers when you're coming in and out, know exactly what you're doing and what visa you're on because they could, if they get confused, bad things happen. We don't want confusion with them. Again, as many of you may know, there's many changes happening in immigration right now due to the Trump era. So obviously DHS is planning to propose to move the IER. There's also that huge travel ban that just happened which is why it's not on my slide yet. Because it just got released from the Supreme Court a couple days ago. Does that affect anybody in this room? Do you know? What is this? Okay, so there's currently a travel ban that the United States Supreme Court let down. It's a Trump initiative. It bans people from several countries from coming into the United States, countries like Iran, Syria, Somalia, North Korea, some people from Venezuela. So if you're a citizen of these countries, Then there is more steps you will have to do if you attempt to immigrate and get a permanent residency here in America. Has anybody heard about it? No? Okay.

What is the IER?

Okay, so this is directly affecting entrepreneurs being able to come into the country. So right now entrepreneurs have kind of a separate visa. It's the tech visa, and entrepreneurs is a category of it. So right now they're looking at kind of changing those rules. He's definitely wanting to shake up the whole immigration process. He also wants to change the H-1B structure, which I'm sure that's the most common visa you guys might be aware of. He was also proposing to completely overhaul the H-1B structure as well. So this will affect a lot of people kind of coming into the country. Obviously, it's kind of an unknown right now what's happening, because when immigration happens, it changes and it changes fast. So we'll wait for the upcoming days to kind of see what comes down and what comes out of this. Why is immigration challenging? American laws are extremely confusing and nobody really understands them. There's so many loopholes. There's so many things you can do, you can't do. You can do this. You can't do that. Also, it's really expensive to do immigration. It's just a really expensive process. So you need to plan accordingly. If you run out of money halfway through, what's going to happen? You've got to pre-plan for all these different things. And there's always risks. No immigration is 100%. I don't care how great your case is, how great the company that's sponsoring you. There's never a 100% guarantee that you are going to get a visa or a green card. All right, guys. Now we're going to talk about your various options. So we've kind of put together a list that the tech industry tends to use. These are going to be the visas that generally are going to apply to you. Obviously, there's a million different types of visas and green cards out there. These are the lists that we picked out that will most likely affect you directly. And here's pretty much a nice little list of them. Okay. First, we're going to go over the temporary visas, the B-1 visa. So a lot of visas that people come over, this is the business visa. This is a visa, although it's slash business, kind of tourist. So you can't actually do business in America under this visa. You can come, you can take meetings, you can have a conference, you can give a speech like I'm doing today. Various different things you're allowed to do under this visa, but you cannot work in America under this visa. It is very much a gray area. It's mostly used for international businessmen that are kind of coming here to close a sale or something of that nature. It's not meant for you to stay in America or actually do business while you're here. H-1B. So this is the most commonly known visa. It is kind of the lowest bar. Really, you need an education degree to get this one and a job offer. Anybody have heard of this one before? No? Yeah. A lot of shaking of the heads. Yeah. Education degree has to be here in the U.S. or you have to— you can have it from anywhere? So you can have a degree from anywhere. If you do have a degree from another country, we have to do what's called an equivalency. So you have to send the paperwork to a third-party company and they equate what your degree is into American 4-year degree structure and they'll kind of spit out an answer of what your degree means. Several countries have 3-year degree processes. So I know Australians won, Canadians won. A lot of them have 3-year degrees, which doesn't fit our 4-year structure. So you have to make up that last year in experience or something else to be able to kind of fit this system. Okay. Did you have a question?

Yeah. I was wondering, I realized that my 3-month visa for the U.S. coming from Germany is way easier and faster than what other countries have to do. Does this mean that if I wanted a visa like this, it's also going to be a different process, or is everybody equally—

So specifically the H-1B, what visa are you on now?

Like generally, if I want to have a visa to work here.

Right. Oh, no. So where you come from, unless you're from one of those banned countries that's currently happening, The work visas don't equate to where you're from. So the tourist visas, the B visa does. It's a lot easier from some of our countries that we share relationships and ties with. Obviously, the ESTA is only open to certain countries that we have certain ties with. They don't look at where you're from with these visas that we're going to be talking about, except for people that are in the travel ban countries now. So that will be completely separate, and that's a whole different conversation. So if you're from one of those, we can discuss it. But other than that— It's all the same. H-1B, we try to use this one as little as possible. Why? Because it's a lottery system. So it doesn't matter how amazing your application is and how amazing your employer is. You are a number. So when they get your application, they put a number on it. And they do a lottery just like they do on the TV. And they pull out a number. And if your number comes up, then they look at your application. So it doesn't matter how amazing it is. It's purely a lottery system. If your number is picked or it's not. Okay. Yes. What about the Do they disclose that it's a lottery? Do they disclose the lottery?

No, do they say that the H-1B is a lottery?

Yeah, everyone knows that. Yeah, it's very widely known. There's exact parameters on how many people are allowed in and out. 65,000 for the base category. There is about 20,000 more that are available for higher education. So there is a little bit of a better chance if you have above a regular bachelor's degree if you have a master's or a doctorate or something in that nature. But yeah, everyone knows it's a lottery and they're aware that it's a risk. Because we get about 290,000 applications each year. So there's about a 30% chance that you get it. Yeah. How many times can you apply? You can keep applying. Because it's not like a denial like a normal visa. It's just that you didn't get picked. What's the timeline? So you can only apply for the H-1B once a year. So it's in the beginning of the year. And then they make their choices. And then you get to know your choice usually 3 months later and then you have work authorization by October. So it's still, you know, an 8-month process or so. Nothing is fast, guys. Shocking. The government is slow. Yes?

Is it like the diversity visa lottery?

Yeah, kind of. Yeah, yeah. So the diversity visa lottery, for you guys that don't know, you can apply for that. Different countries get a certain amount of people that can apply for a green card through a lottery system as well. Yeah, so you have to reapply every year if you want to try to do it. It is kind of like that. Is there a certain job position that has this privilege? No. No. So you do have to fit one of the job structures under the H-1B visa. So it can't be, I'm gonna be a yoga teacher. So no, you have to have one of the preset because you have to have a university degree, and there's a whole full list of different jobs that specialty occupations they call them that you can come under. But just because you're better at one job, let's say more technical, it doesn't, you know, the manager who's also applying, it's not going to make a difference. Yeah.

So you just said you need a bachelor's degree, but then you said that the bachelor's degree slots are like 20,000 more.

No, the up above a bachelor's degree is more. So if you have a master's or a doctorate or something above a bachelor's degree, there is a special amount reserved for those categories. And so they have a higher chance of obtaining the H-1B visa. OK.