Hi, my name is Michael Niren.
I'm an immigration lawyer and founder of VisaPlace.com.
We got a question today about, "What are my options for
getting a work visa to the US?"
Well, there are a number of options that are available, depending upon your
situation.
A popular option would be a H1B visa.
An H1B visa is for people who have what is called specialty occupations,
usually require a college or university degree and have a job offer in
the United States that is consistent with your education.
The thing with H1Bs is that every year, there is an annual cap of H1Bs and
you can apply in April 1st of a given year and there's a mad rush for
application.
So if you qualify for an H1B or you want to apply for an H1B
or you want to apply for an H1B, you better do it right on the mark on
April 1st because if you wait too longer, there's a possibility that there
won't be any H1Bs available.
Another popular option for Canadians is a TN visa.
Again, it's usually for individuals who have a college or university
degree.
But not necessarily.
There are some occupations that don't require that.
The trick for a TN visa is that you have to have an occupation on
a list of occupations at the appendix of the NAFTA agreement.
It's a pretty short list.
So you have to have that kind of occupation.
Also, you need a job offer.
A TN visa is very advantageous because you can get it very quickly.
There are no caps.
You can apply for the visa right at the border,
the Canada/US border, which is a great and quick way of getting a visa.
Other options would be what we call the L visa or L1 visa and that is
really for people who are being transferred from a foreign company to an
American company, in most cases.
So you work for the foreign company for at least one year and, typically, you should
be either an executive, a manger or person of specialized knowledge where you
would then be transferred to the US company.
So that's an option, too.
So those are what I would consider the main options.
There is also the investor visa as well, E-visas.
Where you could invest in a business or start a business in the US and get a visa
that way.
So that's a very high-level general overview of what is available.
There are of course other visas, but those are the most
common; at least the ones that we see in terms of applying for a US
visa.