USA H-1B visa questions

[Peaceonearthplease]

I’ve applied for a job in Massachusetts & have been told by the employer that they will consider sponsoring my visa, although they have little experience of doing this. I’m a Brit, 50 years old and would love to make this move with the idea of eventually applying for a green card / permanent residency if everything goes well. What do I, and my potential employer, have to consider at this early stage? Is my age an issue & what is the time frame? I have a young DC, would they also be sponsored under this visa? Thanks

From what I understand the employer has to sponsor your visa, you cannot apply for it yourself.H1-B visas are allocated by lottery and are always oversubscribed.

Look at Britishexpats.com they have a wealth of info on the process

H-1B visas are only issued once a year. The process opens up each April so your prospective employer would petition for your visa in April and if you're one of the successful ones who are granted a visa, you would start work in October so the earliest you could start a new job would be October 2018. The number of visas issued is capped so it's massively oversubscribed. If successful, your children would get dependent H-4 visas.

A large majority of the H-1B visas are given to IT workers (many from India) who move to the US to work for companies like Microsoft, Google, IBM etc. I'm not saying it's not possible but I don't think it's that common for a company to bring over 1 person on an H-1B. Most people that transfer from the UK are on an L-1 visa but to qualify for that, it has be a job working for the same company you worked for in the UK so it's an overseas transfer. It doesn't seem that applies in your case.

Also be aware, that the process would cost your prospective employer quite a bit of money if they needed to hire an immigration lawyer to process your application and with no guarantee that you're going to get a visa, that's a risk for them. It could be a lot of effort and stress waiting for the result and then you end up not even getting the visa. All round a very tricky process. And of course, you have to ask yourself, why would they go to all that trouble to bring you over when they might be able to hire a US citizen to do the job. There's also lots of info on other threads here about cost of living in the US, moving overseas, have a read of all that as well, it will help you figure out whether it's something you really want to do. Good luck!

Thanks realhouse. This has clarified exactly what I have been confused by. The company needs to fill the position soon & I can’t imagine they would wait until October for me to start or go to the expense without a guaranteed visa outcome. Hey ho. I go in hope but realistically think it’s not going to happen.

H1-B visas are getting harder and harder to get (I had one 20 years ago) and the process is way more onerous than an intra company transfer (L-1 visa). They have to do the labor certification steps to justify why they need to hire a foreigner rather than a local (specialized knowledge etc), and prove that they are not undercutting local pay rates. Once that done, then apply for visa and as stated above I think it is a lottery now. Even back in the day, they were hard to get and you had to have an employer willing to wait for you to get them, and I think it has only got worse. Spouse or children also only get the H-4 visa which does not allow them to work, unlike L-2.