British Expats

British Expats (https://britishexpats.com/forum/)
-   USA (https://britishexpats.com/forum/usa-57/)
-   -   Immigration quandry.. please help!! (https://britishexpats.com/forum/usa-57/immigration-quandry-please-help-247440/)

the_wanderer Aug 8th 2004 8:26 pm

Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 
Hiya,

Basically my Dad lives in Stuart Florida and has permanent resident satus, I am looking at moving out there (can stay with him for a few weeks until I sort things out). But looks like the waiting time is 15-20 months!!

12 months is ok because if i'm right I can get six month temp work visa, and if apllication went in next month then Feb wound be about five months away. Leaving a one month break in between..

Extra three months (plus) is a long time to not be able to work..

Thing is, if i'm going to do this it has to be before mid-late Feb next year.. otherwise i'm stuck for three years min! Thanks largely to a couple of ex-mates running up debts in my name I am paying out 45% of my salary to credit agencies, as of Feb i have to double the payment or go bankrupt. If that happens most countries will turn me down anyway, besides which i'd be legally bound to stay.

Solicitor advised there is no solid evidence that i didn't run up the debts and that leaving the country was a good idea because after six years from the last payment I make the debts are nulled because they are unsecured.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't my only reason for wanting to move, i've wanted to for a long time but never seemed the right time. But with the auctioning of some of my old stuff and collectables I have three options:

1) Pay off a chunk of the debt and try to pursuade the creditors to reduce the payment.
2) Put the money in a close family members account, go bankrupt in Feb, and use the money as a backup fund whilst bankrupt.
3) Emmigrate, with the money, and have the debts cleared after six years.

You can guess which has the most appeal :)

I was an IT consultant for almost 5 years and worked on some of the largest projects undertaken in the UK. Including the first and still largest Windows 2000 rollout in Europe finished off with 750 installations accross a call centre in one night. Anyhow, I have a fairly impressive CV.

There seem to be a fairly high number of tech jobs, but was wondering if anyone had taken the company sponsorship route etc? If so any tips or info would be greatly appreciated!!

Any other general info, eg basic living costs in relation to areas, would also be appreciated. There are websites with some of this info but most assumes you already live in the US.. quite frankly i'm not sure what the hell to do at the moment!!

Thanks in advance :D

g1ant Aug 8th 2004 8:45 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by the_wanderer
Hiya,

Basically my Dad lives in Stuart Florida and has permanent resident satus, I am looking at moving out there (can stay with him for a few weeks until I sort things out). But looks like the waiting time is 15-20 months!!

This might be better to ask in the immigration section.

I'm no expert, but it seems from what you say that you are the unmarried son of a permanent resident. That puts you in the preference group 2B. They are currently processing applications for that group from May 1995. So you are looking at 9 years minimum. That's if you are unmarried. If you are married then you are completely SOL.

Even if your dad gets US citizenship, the wait is 4 years. I'm not sure on what basis you think you could get a six month temporary work visa.

If I were you I wouldn't start packing just yet.

the_wanderer Aug 8th 2004 8:56 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 
I am Single, from what my Dads wife (US Citizen) has found out from the local office it shouldnt be longer than 20 months..

So far found 58 companies in Florida with vacancies that would be willing to sponsor immigration, surely a firm offer once i'm out there must count for something?? :confused:

Will try posting in immigration section, new to this :)

Ray Aug 9th 2004 3:55 am

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 
You will find that g1ant is correct.. see this site for correct info: http://uscis.gov/graphics/howdoi/child.htm

Six month temp work permit ...no chance unless your fruit picking

As your father is resident in the US.. It is most likely you will be refused a B-2 tourist visa... your best chance is just to arrive on a visa waiver for 90 days.
I hope you did not get the info about 58 companies willing to sponsor visas from a job site.. these are always grossly over exagerated.. If you wish to get a H-1B visa for a OCT 2004 start you really should get a job offer before that date.. that is the date when all the available H-1B will be doled out..there is only 65k for this year ..I doubt if there will be many available after the initial surge.. you will then have to wait for the following Oct..for the next batch to be available..good luck

dbj1000 Aug 9th 2004 4:30 am

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by the_wanderer
I am Single, from what my Dads wife (US Citizen) has found out from the local office it shouldnt be longer than 20 months..

So far found 58 companies in Florida with vacancies that would be willing to sponsor immigration, surely a firm offer once i'm out there must count for something?? :confused:

Will try posting in immigration section, new to this :)

Where did you find 58 companies that you think are willing to sponsor immigration?!?

You will be lucky if you find ONE company willing to sponsor immigration for an IT specialist. That's a profession with massive unemployment over here right now, and you'd have to be pretty special in IT to provide a compelling argument for H1B sponsorship.

And then there's the problem of there only being 65k H1B visas this year, and them all being taken within 4-6 weeks of their start date, as Ray says.

Whilst you stand a slightly better chance of getting an H1B than the average hopeful brickie who appears on these boards every week or so dreaming of emigrating to Florida (and always Florida), you need to realize that H1Bs are hard as hell to get right now, and that as a result employer sponsorship is going to be a real struggle.

honeymommy Aug 9th 2004 7:37 am

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 
To get sponsorship that really has any chance of going through you really will need a degree pertaining to your field of expertise and employment. I hope you have that as H1b's are a pain without it. Labor certification right now is really slow, so it would be a while before you could start.

As far as the debt you mention. Leaving debt in the UK is not a guarantee you will be let off. With international collection agencies there is a very high probability they will find you. The 6 year limit only applies if they haven't found you. If any of the debts are credit cards or major loans, as soon as you start building a credit rating in the US eg. a visa card.... Your details are out there...... Sometimes situations suck, but the past will catch up eventually in most cases....

Here's an example..... man left UK to work in USA leaving credit card debt of £2500. Four years later he recieved a phone call from a collection agency asking for the debt to be repaid.... In this time with charges and penalties the debt had more than doubled. When transferred into $ it was over $10,000. Now thats got to hurt.........

Sorry to be the bearer of this news.

On a positive side... If you have the necessary qualifications to get sponsorship to work in the US, and enough skills to get a good job with great pay. It may just give you enough to pay off the debt sooner.




Originally Posted by dbj1000
Where did you find 58 companies that you think are willing to sponsor immigration?!?

You will be lucky if you find ONE company willing to sponsor immigration for an IT specialist. That's a profession with massive unemployment over here right now, and you'd have to be pretty special in IT to provide a compelling argument for H1B sponsorship.

And then there's the problem of there only being 65k H1B visas this year, and them all being taken within 4-6 weeks of their start date, as Ray says.

Whilst you stand a slightly better chance of getting an H1B than the average hopeful brickie who appears on these boards every week or so dreaming of emigrating to Florida (and always Florida), you need to realize that H1Bs are hard as hell to get right now, and that as a result employer sponsorship is going to be a real struggle.


the_wanderer Aug 9th 2004 9:14 am

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 
Thanks for the info, looks like i need to get a firm offer before OCT 2004 really then :)

The 58 (now actually 46 cos i've eliminated a few I got from websites!) companies are mainly companies that use out-sourcing, I worked with Microsoft, IBM, TUI/SHG consultants / senior management that would be willing to help from here by reccomendation. I'm calling in any favours owed on this one!

My solicitor has given me a lot of advise on the financial side, for example only using a bank account that doesn't require a social security number. I don't use credit etc anyway i prefer to wait and pay for things in cash, if I can't afford it I don't have it!
In my case though is that these are not even debts I ran up myself (complicated).. Were not talking loans and credit cards it's store cards & catalogues used in my name. From his experience, they will give up within two years at most in many cases because of the relative expenses, even if the person is still based in the UK.. Six years is just a legal point of view.

It also now seems I can raise more cash than first thought, probably enough to live quite happily for 2 years plus in the US without working if it came to it.

Anyhow, time I got to confirming available positions me thinks.. Thanks again for the advice. :D

dbj1000 Aug 9th 2004 12:38 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by honeymommy
...I hope you have that as H1b's are a pain without it. Labor certification right now is really slow, so it would be a while before you could start....

You don't need labor certification before starting an H1B - the visa is either granted or it isn't. The application for the visa can take a few months (<3 months if the sponsor pays the $1000 expedited application fee).

The endless wait for Labor Certification (up to 3 years right now in Texas) is part of the GC application process.

ladyofthelake Aug 9th 2004 12:44 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by dbj1000
You don't need labor certification before starting an H1B - the visa is either granted or it isn't. The application for the visa can take a few months (<3 months if the sponsor pays the $1000 expedited application fee).

The endless wait for Labor Certification (up to 3 years right now in Texas) is part of the GC application process.

Yes you do need the labour cert for the H1b.

http://www.ows.doleta.gov/foreign/h-1b.asp

dbj1000 Aug 9th 2004 12:56 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by the_wanderer
Thanks for the info, looks like i need to get a firm offer before OCT 2004 really then :)

The 58 (now actually 46 cos i've eliminated a few I got from websites!) companies are mainly companies that use out-sourcing, I worked with Microsoft, IBM, TUI/SHG consultants / senior management that would be willing to help from here by reccomendation. I'm calling in any favours owed on this one!

My solicitor has given me a lot of advise on the financial side, for example only using a bank account that doesn't require a social security number. I don't use credit etc anyway i prefer to wait and pay for things in cash, if I can't afford it I don't have it!
In my case though is that these are not even debts I ran up myself (complicated).. Were not talking loans and credit cards it's store cards & catalogues used in my name. From his experience, they will give up within two years at most in many cases because of the relative expenses, even if the person is still based in the UK.. Six years is just a legal point of view.

It also now seems I can raise more cash than first thought, probably enough to live quite happily for 2 years plus in the US without working if it came to it.

Anyhow, time I got to confirming available positions me thinks.. Thanks again for the advice. :D

Hmm. Doesn't outsourcing mean that they aren't the direct employer of the person to whom they are outsourcing work? That would mean that they couldn't sponsor an H1B visa because you'd effectively be an independent contractor. To sponsor an H1B the company needs to make a case that the sponsored foreign worker has skills which cannot be readily found in the local or national workforce, and that they have immidiate need for those skills as part of their ongoing business. If they can outsource the work anywhere within the US then there's no case for an H1B.

You certainly need more than a firm offer of employment by October. You need your prospective employer to have started the application for an H1B by then. My employer hired a top Immmigration Lawyer for my visa, paid all additional fees to expedite the application, and it still took nearly 5 months from the job offer (following interview and advertising the job in the local press and interviewing all local candidates) to the visa being issued.

...which is just to say that you need to have your job offer soon. By Friday would just about bee soon enough! :D

On the subject of bank accounts - as far as I know, the Patriot Act requires banks to only open an account for someone with a Social Security number. If you're trying to hide from your creditors in the UK, the chances are you're tryin to hide in general, and the Patriot Act specifically targets foreign nationals trying to hide their presence in the US.

I know I'm painting a very negative picture here, but you need to be realistic...

...and it still pisses me off that we get endless "hey, I need to emigrate to hide from my creditors" posts. Your story may be different (your "mates" ran up the debts?) but you have no idea how many people decide that the easiest way to deal with running up debts is to skip the country, and see emigrating to the US as some kind of quick fix. Rather than trying to hide over here, perhaps you should be grown-up enough to come to an arrangement with your creditors to pay the debt off slowly while you're abroad? Hell, if you can actually get an H1B then, as Honey says, you'll be making quite enough money to pay off what you owe.

And finally, if you can raise enough money to live here (illegally) for two years without working, then why are you running out on your debts?

Bollocks. As I type this long message it dawns on me that you're just another standard troll on this board. Running out on debts... staying in the US for two years illegaly without working... assuming it's easy to get a visa... all the standard troll lines. What a waste of time!

dbj1000 Aug 9th 2004 1:04 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by ladyofthelake
Yes you do need the labour cert for the H1b.

http://www.ows.doleta.gov/foreign/h-1b.asp

LCA = Labor Condition Application

Not Labor Certificaiton.

There's a huge difference between the two. The LCA is part of the H1B application and simply indicates that the employer knows of the conditions that must be met as part of their sponsoring of the H1B applicant. Labor Certification requires that the employer prove that there is no US worker in the job market who can do the job being done by the foreign worker. It requires that the job be advertised in the press and that reasons be given for the rejection of any and all US applicants. It then goes to the Department of Labor where it takes around 2 years to get certified or rejected.

g1ant Aug 9th 2004 1:20 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by dbj1000
On the subject of bank accounts - as far as I know, the Patriot Act requires banks to only open an account for someone with a Social Security number.

Not true. I opened a bank account with Wells Fargo without one last August. At the time you couldn't have on-line banking without a SS number. I never could work that one out, but they relaxed that in May this year.

I have to agree with you on the OP. The chances of him getting to live and work legally in the US are zilch.

We should start an Immigration 101 sticky topic with the answers to the same old questions. It's a fact though that most people in the UK think that all you need to come and live is the US is a plane ticket.

ladyofthelake Aug 9th 2004 1:30 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by dbj1000
LCA = Labor Condition Application

Not Labor Certificaiton.

There's a huge difference between the two. The LCA is part of the H1B application and simply indicates that the employer knows of the conditions that must be met as part of their sponsoring of the H1B applicant. Labor Certification requires that the employer prove that there is no US worker in the job market who can do the job being done by the foreign worker. It requires that the job be advertised in the press and that reasons be given for the rejection of any and all US applicants. It then goes to the Department of Labor where it takes around 2 years to get certified or rejected.

OK you got me on a technicality :D It's still part of the process though, and has to be applied for before sending the petition to the USCIS.

dbj1000 Aug 9th 2004 2:48 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by ladyofthelake
OK you got me on a technicality :D It's still part of the process though, and has to be applied for before sending the petition to the USCIS.

Labor Certification is part of the Green Card application process, but certainly not part of the H1B process.

the_wanderer Aug 9th 2004 3:38 pm

Re: Immigration quandry.. please help!!
 

Originally Posted by dbj1000
Hmm. Doesn't outsourcing mean that they aren't the direct employer of the person to whom they are outsourcing work?

Yes it does mean that.


Originally Posted by dbj1000
That would mean that they couldn't sponsor an H1B visa because you'd effectively be an independent contractor.

There is a huge difference between contracting and out-sourcing, basically I would be employed by the company providing the out-sourced staff, such as IBM, Compaq, or possibly Dell. So effectiviley they would be able to apply.


Originally Posted by dbj1000
(Your "mates" ran up the debts?)

To cut a long story short was letting a house to a couple (old school friend & fiance), whilst I was working away in Glasgow for two years. I got back to find unpaid utility bills, council tax, catalogues etc all in my name. At present totals best part of $70,000!


Originally Posted by dbj1000
Rather than trying to hide over here, perhaps you should be grown-up enough to come to an arrangement with your creditors to pay the debt off slowly while you're abroad?

IF i had that option do you not think i'd take it? I've been trying to deal with them for over a year without luck, more than half my salary is currently taken and because of the interest it doesn't even make a scratch! Add to this that they expect the payments to double in Feb of next year, otherwise I face bankrupcy, and lets face it they would never let me in then!


Originally Posted by dbj1000
And finally, if you can raise enough money to live here (illegally) for two years without working, then why are you running out on your debts?

Two years basic living costs in Florida is nowhere near as much as my total debts, in fact way less than a third. Not enough to prevent bankrupcy if that's the route they force upon me. Besides who said anything about staying illegally, there are always other options :)


Originally Posted by dbj1000
see emigrating to the US as some kind of quick fix

FYI It's not like this is the only reason i'm doing this, if i'd done it when i originally thought about it two years ago it would be a different story.
It's no quick fix, believe me, there is a lot i'd miss out on back here, my brothers 21st for example. But in all honesty i've lost a lot these part two years (and no i'm not just talking money and crap), and a big part of this is wanting to get away from bad memories and getting to know a Dad I have hardly seen in 11 years.



Originally Posted by dbj1000
Bollocks. As I type this long message it dawns on me that you're just another standard troll on this board. Running out on debts... staying in the US for two years illegaly without working... assuming it's easy to get a visa... all the standard troll lines. What a waste of time!

If you have helpful advice then it's appreciated, but please don't judge me personally when you don't know the full extent of my circumstances.


All times are GMT. The time now is 3:10 pm.

Powered by vBulletin: ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.