The Moose

A lot of the guys here are, rightly or wrongly, very negative about your chances of moving to the USA.

I was in a similar position and found a route around it - opening a US based business doing something I had a lot of experience in.

Ok, so I've invested over a quarter of a million bucks so far...and I haven't yet left the UK (early Jan) but was granted my E2 visa for 5 years just last week. To be fair, only about $25k has been spent before my visa was issued - the rest has been committed for ordered stock etc.

Yes, my wife and I accept that we likely will have to leave the USA at the end of our visa (end of 2021) if we can't renew under my E2 for whatever reason, however we are travelling this particular path.

I'm not saying it's a definite route that will be successful for you, but perhaps you and your good lady could come up with a business idea and put together a business plan and look to save like nothing else and make the move to start a scaffolding business in the USA.

It's not plain sailing and there are significant risks. I am fortunate that I can afford to take that risk and what happens, happens - I don't know what your financial situation is.

Good luck with whatever route you try to go down!

Phattwoodcooper

Thank you for actual kind words instead of just putting me down. Half the people commenting wouldn't last a day in my job anyway. But well have a look into things but maybe it is just a pipe dream, but from what I've read the usa are crying for skilled trade workers that actually want to work. Yes there maybe thousands of scaffolders but only around 10℅ are any good... But we can do but try. So thank you

The Moose

As long as you're not the scaffolder I last employed then no problem ;-).

He was a knob of the highest order!

materialcontroller

People aren't putting you down, they are actually just being brutally honest with you.

Your job is not one that is suitable for immigrating to the USA. Therefore, you have no chance to go and live there (as things currently stand).

neill

Maybe true, but they're just being honest.. the answers are all on the internet and they could have told you to find it out for yourself.

Twinkle0927

[QUOTE] I'm sorry you didn't hear what you were hoping to hear. But it's the reality. People here are very experienced in what works and what doesn't work in terms of immigration. All of us also started out not knowing what was and what was not possible. Now, some of us have a much easier path (I am the wife of a US citizen, for example) but there are also people who have struggled and worked hard to get there - and that's the point. It could be achievable for you in maybe 10 years time. But if you were hoping you could call the embassy tomorrow and book an appointment for a visa interview and be on the plane next week, you're going to be very disappointed. How hard do you want to work for it? Would you go back to university for 3 or 4 years to learn a new profession and then work at it for several years to get to the stage where you could be in with a chance? if yes, good for you - I'll probably see you there in 10 years time. If not, well the local travel agent will be happy to sell you many more holidays there.

We see many people here who want to move to the USA. But very few of them who are prepared to put 10 years or so of work into it. Most of them have recently been on holiday there and come home and thought 'I want to live there and now'. It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid.

That's fine - we don't have to. We all have our own jobs. I doubt you could do mine but that's not the point.

Where did you read this? What's the official source? Or is this 'a bloke down the pub said...'

What they have over you, no matter how good you are, is that they are available for work tomorrow and require no sponsorship from the employer. Purely from a business sense an employer is going to plump for someone who can start immediately and doesn't require thousands to be spent on fees to get them into the country in the first place.

Bob

Specialist skills, could be a possibility but a bit of a stretch.

A mate of mine knew a carpenter who was able to get in that way but it was only for a short while, restoring old doors for a couple of museums and buildings on the Cape. He had worked on restoring stuff for the Vatican before though, so very niche, high end skills. The kind of doors that were $100K worth.

Thing is, scaffolding is pretty much a non-existent trade over here.

Bob

Yes, could be the case. Doesn't help you unfortunately as it doesn't lead to a visa.

Your best bet is being able to afford to lose a lot of money and invest in setting up a company. This doesn't lead to a greencard directly though.

Either that, or enjoy a holiday.

It's no better living here than anywhere else, it's just different.

Pulaski

Well there is no such thing as a bachelor's degree in scaffolding, and the US doesn't issue visas for trades; not electricians, not plumbers, not bricklayers, and not scaffolders. But hypothetically if the OP found himself living in the US, he would find his skills useless because scaffolding in the US is entirely different, slotted together from trusses and modular deck pieces, not constructed entirely from poles, clamps, and boards. So even if you call yourself an "access and rigging engineer", it won't help because the skills and techniques are different.

Also, most construction in the US does not use scaffolding for anything but providing protection for passing pedestrians - access to the exterior of the building is almost entirely by "cherry pickers" and lifts/hoists for the first ten or so floors, and then by cranes, cradles, and ropes and harnesses. Scaffolding is rarely used these days.
Your "kind words" are all very well, but if you're investing in stock I am going to hazard a guess that your business in not particularly close to operating a scaffolding business. Therefore your situation is not at all relevant to the OP's situation so if the only thing the OP wants to hear is "how to get a job in the US" we might as well recommend that he retrains as a computer programmer, a research physicist, or a doctor because those are jobs with a good probability of attracting support for a visa.

BritInParis

Sounds like the Green Card lottery might be the only way to go if either the OP or his partner were born in an eligible country, which doesn't include the UK or the Republic of Ireland, but rather oddly does include Northern Ireland.

neill

Yeah, I was responding to the idea that he could 'shoehorn' his skill into some kind of "Engineer" occupation (he wrote it....).

Pulaski

Agreed, and I would like to emphasize it is where you are born that is relevant, not what passport you hold or can obtain. For example someone born in Italy would be eligible for the lottery, but someone born in Britain who is eligible for an Italian passport because their father is Italian would not be eligible for the lottery.

BTW if you are eligible for the lottery, the success rate each year is less than 2%.

ian-mstm

With respect, no one here put you down. They may think your idea has no merit whatsoever... but that's not the same thing.


That may be true... but we know immigration - and that's the issue. If you want someone to hold your hand and tell you what you want to hear, you've come to the wrong place. Some of us are brutally honest, but we're absolutely honest. No sugarcoating.

Which would you rather have?

Ian

BritInParis

I understand that the 50,000 places are split between six inhabited continents and therefore some countries would have a higher rate of success than others based on the number of applicants within their region and the 3,500 annual cap per country. My other half is Australian and therefore ten times more likely to be selected (8.77%) than the average (0.87%) thanks to Australia being included in Oceania and Australians uniquely blessed by having the E-3 visa program. As a contrast the selected rate for the average Europe-born applicant last year was 0.85%.

Pulaski

That's interesting. The last time I looked the regional allocation was such that most regions had a success rate each year in the 1.5%-1.9% range, and the only exception was Oceana at around 6.5%. Obviously fewer applicants pushes up the success rate.