California- north

[Cat1nthehat]

Looking at moving to Northern California- commutable distance to San Jose. Have 2 children aged 11 and 13. Any idea on what schools are like? They are in a very good school right now and moving them would mean losing their place. Is it hard to make friends?? I’m a teacher- not sure i would be able to do this out there without requalifying.

I agree, he needs a visa ASAP, one more trip in and he may have a big problem. You can't work 180 days without a visa in the US, you can't even work one day. If he gets an L or an H, you might be able to get an EAD (employment authorisation document) but it can take up to 6 months. His company should offer to pay for and apply for your EAD once they have applied for his visa.

You both need to sit down with an immigration and US tax lawyer ASAP and describe fully and in detail the arrangement your H has now wrt working for this particular company (what division, etc) and how many days he works in the US/what exactly he does.

Don't do anything else until you have figured out your H's status/legality.

And don't count on any visas being available while Trump is in power.

Assuming he hasn't already breached immigration rules, which in all honesty sounds unlikely, he could apply for an L visa. You can then get a spouse visa and an EAD card (though this can take up to 6 months)

His company needs to arrange for him to speak to an immigration lawyer ASAP to work out next steps

I have been here 2 years, my husband has an L visa and I have a spouse visa and EAD card

I wouldn't mess with immigration in the US

My friend's OH is a famous TV star and he had to get visas for every single day he spends filming in the US. He goes to the US Embassy in London before each trip to pick up his visa. There's absolutely no way your OH is allowed to work in the US without a visa the way he is doing right now. He needs to stop doing so ASAP before the USCIS spots what he's doing.

Thanks for your advice. Whilst we have been here, he has been visiting customers, attending meetings etc. So not just decided to work in separate office. Anyway things have now moved on since I last posted and he has been offered a position on the East Coast rather than west. I have looked into visas and he needs an l1 and me and l2. Hs new position wouldn’t be til July next year so that gives me another academic year in my current school and plenty of time to sort visas. Now worried my children wouldn’t be able to get Saturday jobs on l visa but we will meet that bridge in a few years. The information for which companies have applied for visas seems to be publicly available and none of his company have ever has visas rejected but as far as I can see nobody else has had an l visa, they had the other one where the spouse can’t work.

When he applies for the L-1 he'll fill in a DS-160 form. Among other things it'll ask him for dates of travel and purpose of travel for his most recent 5 trips to the US. If it looks like he's been stringing together trips so he can work, they may deny his application for an L-2.

Here's some more info
www.immihelp.com/us-visa-ds-160-form-previous-us-travel-information/

Just be very careful filling in the form, and with any trips to the US between now and when the form is submitted. I assume his employer will hire a lawyer to help. He is very badly ill-informed at the moment if he says he thinks he can work up to 180 days in the US without any form of visa.

Hopefully all will be well and you'll move here with no problems next July. Lots of us live on the east coast and will happily help answer any questions.

To start in July 2020, you'd be wanting to start the process around now. Anywhere between 6-12 months is generally considered good timing. Before you even get to the visa application stage, his company lawyers will have to submit an employment petition (unless they have a blanket petition in place?) which is the process of proving that his company needs him in the US, showing what specialist skills, experience etc. he will bring to the job - essentially proving why he is the only person that can do that job. If (and it is an if, not a when) the employment petition is approved, that's when you move to visa applications as a whole family with embassy visit etc. There's a LOT of paperwork that needs to be gathered and depending on how good the lawyers are, the whole process can move along fairly quickly or can drag for months and months. The L1 visa can be done on premium processing which speeds things along so push for that if you can.