Casio

Hi,

Myself and a friend are looking for some information on how we would go about moving to California. I have looked around online and it seems pretty much impossible to do I am 22 years old and currently self employed. I create YouTube videos for a living. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best way for me to apply for citizenship? I would be supporting my friend out there financially until he found work and could provide financial evidence proving that I am able to support the both of us whilst living there. Any advice is much appreciated and if you require any more information please let me know. Also if I decided at some point I wanted to move back how easy would that be?

Thanks in advance,

Pulaski

First, read the two Pulaski wikis in the US section of the wikis tab above, which will help you identify which visa type are you eligible for? Clue: you are probably not eligible for any visa to live in the US, so you are correct, it probably is impossible.

If you are going to ever live in the US you need a long term plan to fit yourself under one of the eligible visa categories, and it may well take ten or more years, and a certain amount of luck!

Applying for citizenship is not possible until you have had a green card for a minimum of five years (three if you're married to a USC), and depending on what visa you obtain to work in the US, it can often take 5-7 years to get a green card. Even if you are able to successfully navigate the US visa rules to live and work in the US, it is definitely going to be a long time before you become eligible to apply for citizenship.

Move back? Move back where? If you're a British citizen you can move to the UK any time you want, and becoming a US citizen does not require you to give up British citizenship.

Silverdragon102

Do you have rights for citizenship? If you are looking at living and working in the US then suggest start here http://britishexpats.com/forum/us-im...ork-us-585898/ as well as the wiki above

mikelincs

Firstly you would need to emigrate to he US and get a green card, then after a few years you could apply for citizenship, but that is putting the cart before the horse. Please read the following from the BE Wiki and see if you have any chance of even getting to work there.

Pulaski's Ways: How to Live and Work in the USA : British Expat Wiki

The USA is one of the hardest countries to move to, and with out a shed load of money, a high level degree, a transfer from a UK company to their US branch at managerial level, or a very specialised skill that no-one in the US will have your chances are somewhat less than me becoming the President of the USA while living oin the UK.

Your simplest way would be to find a nice US citizen partner and get married, as several on this site have done.

Casio

Thanks for the response. I had a look and I don't fit under any of them :'(. Do you know why it's so difficult? I would be bringing a very successful business to the country and paying taxes without taking any job from an American citizen. Sorry for all the questions but do you know if it's just as hard to stay there on holiday for say 6 months or more of the year? I may just do that if there is no other way of me being able to stay there. It's such an amazing place, I would love to be able to live there. Also if I was to find an American company willing to sponsor me to work for them would that be easier? I deal with a lot of American companies and even get paid in dollars.

Thanks for the help once again.

Casio

haha well it looks like I will have to fly out and find a wife then. I would be making around $30,000 a month living there and my business turnover is higher, is that not enough?

Pulaski

If by "sponsor" you mean "employ", then yes, however the most common visa type for this is an H-1 visa, which are only available in limited numbers - this year ⅔ of applicants were rejected because there were insufficient visas!

mikelincs

The US company would have to prove that there was no-one in the US who could do the job you do in order to pay the several thusand dollars to get a visa for you to work. The reason it is so difficult is the US really only wants the highest qualified people from other countries to work there.

Regarding the holiday situation, assuming you are a British citizen, you would have to travle under the VWP (visa waiver programme) and that allows only 90 days in the UK at any time, and then you would have to leave, it is also recommended that if you do travel on this visa you then spend more time out of the country before returning. You could NOT work with this visa, and that means do anything that a US citizen would be paid for in any way, and would even include creating YouTube videos

Moses2013

What about health care if you're self employed?

Casio

Oh really? I was there last week and was making videos throughout the whole time I was there, oops. What happens if I do and how would they know?

Casio

I pay for private healthcare here so I assume it would be no different?

Pulaski

It's not legal, so potentially you could be arrested, deported and banned from returning to the US for a period as long as "life". I do not know how "they" would know, but do you want to run the risk?

Moses2013

I don't think it's an issue as long as you're not paying people in the US to work in the video. Every professional musician who wrote a song in the US, but wasn't from there could be arrested then.

AlphaTangoMike

You may want to carefully consider the US healthcare situation before deciding that you want to move:
Wisconsin woman sent to out-of-network hospital faces whopping bill - CBS News

Pulaski

Except that you can write a song anywhere (and therefore notoriously hard to prove when and where it was written), whereas shooting a video necessarily means being where the subject is, so if you're shooting a video on Hollywood Blvd it necessarily means you had to be there, and if shooting videos is your job, whether employed or self employed, you need a visa to do that if you're going to do it in the US.

To your point though, it would not be legal for a non-US author to rent a house in Malibu (or anywhere else in the US) and spend six months there writing a book unless the author had an applicable visa allowing them to do so. Same would apply to running an on-line business outside the US remotely from within the US.