There are different non-immigrant visa types that are worthwhile for founders and Silicon Valley startups to investigate. Here are the most common ones: H-1B Visa This is for an employee of a U.S. company working in a specialty occupation. This is not for self-employment. If you’re a founder out there and you don’t have a…
Draper University recently invited me to speak to participants of its Silicon Valley entrepreneurship program. In addition to covering the main pathways for international entrepreneurs to move to the U.S. to grow their startups, I focused on the journeys of three immigrant founders. Their stories all show how employing a bit of creativity produces successful…
We’re excited to announce a new educational program that offers budding foreign entrepreneurs and seasoned foreign business executives to sharpen their English skills and pitch their startups in Silicon Valley. Another local, woman-owned business, the San Francisco-based English Language Institute (ELI), launched its Business English for Entrepreneurs Program in October 2018. The 12-week course combines…
When Amelia and Oliver* left their native Australia nearly two years ago, the married couple was excited about embarking on their next life adventure in the U.S. Oliver, an algorithmic programmer, accepted a new job in Silicon Valley. Amelia, a university-trained artist, thought life in a new country would inspire her work. And it did…
This is another in a continuing series of posts I’m writing to describe some of the Alcorn Immigration Law team’s client success stories.* To maintain confidentiality, the name of the client has been changed, and details may have been omitted or slightly altered. Ananya was living and working in the U.S. on a temporary nonimmigrant…
The volume of H-1B applications submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and subject to the annual cap dropped for the second consecutive year under the Trump administration. Cap-subject H-1B filings have dropped nearly 20% since 2016. Each year since 2014, the number of cap-subject H-1B petitions submitted had steadily risen, reaching a high…
As graduation season nears, the Alcorn Immigration Law team has been fielding inquiries from established companies, startups, and investors asking about options for promising foreign students to remain in the U.S. Unfortunately, U.S. immigration policy often runs counter to retaining the best and the brightest college graduates in the U.S. Limited options exist for international…
The spouses of H-1B visa holders face losing their work permits. If you’re one of the nearly 180,000 individuals in this situation or have an employee in this situation, what should you do? The Alcorn Immigration Law team has been fielding this question from both the working spouses of H-1B visa holders, who are given…
Relax. Every year the Alcorn Immigration Law team helps employers and foreign professionals devise immigration strategies that fit their needs. Those strategies may include a backup plan in the event that a job candidate fails to get an H-1B specialty occupation visa in the annual H-1B lottery in April. Several other visa options exist for…
Without the proposed International Entrepreneur Rule, which gives temporary permission to foreign founders to create their startups in the U.S., those founders faced a chicken-and-egg problem. Startup founders need to prove to angel investors and venture capitalists that their immigration status is figured out before they get funded. Investors don’t want to worry that a startup founder…