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you know what companies love about national students is they find that they're very hardworking very dependable and very smart all right so the work visa you want the h-1b all right the h-1b is the most commonly used work visa by international students and unfortunately it has severe problems right at the moment and we'll talk about what those are in a minute but that's what you want this is for people it's particularly geared toward people who have graduated from a university with at least a four-year degree that is people in what we call specialty occupations especially occupation is a job for which the normal entry requirement the industry-wide requirement for entry into that job is a four-year degree in a particular area in a particular area very important that you emphasize that now you were mentioning earlier some this website going global right so the cool thing this is data these private web sites grab data that's public from the US Department of Labor the cool thing about this data is you can manipulate it according to any of its elements okay so one you can find out what company sponsor h-1bs - you can find out how many positions they have sponsored in the past you know year two three four five three you can find out how much they're paying for certain types of positions for you can find out what types of positions they're sponsoring for lots of different data elements it's just fun you could spend a whole day you know sorting this information by data elements okay so I would encourage you to look at this it's also useful to counteract you know some companies will say and they come to recruiting fairs on campus they say oh you know we don't sponsor h-1bs and you go well I looked at this website and they said last year you did a hundred of them what's up with that just keep in mind that some companies do not sponsor recent graduates for h-1bs but they do sponsor others who are more highly skilled who have years of experience in a particular area and that person they find that those skills are hard to find in the US so you may find hey we don't sponsor recent graduates but we do sponsor you know people with five years of engineering experience so that maybe a little bit of a disappointment but you know hey that's that's like I like to call the h-1b basics the three-legged stool if you're missing one leg what happens with a three-legged stool if you're missing one leg it immediately falls over right okay so three-legged stool one you have at least a four year degree okay that's essential but it doesn't matter if you have five or six degrees okay if the job does not require degree the job has to require at least a four year degree in the same area as your degree program or very closely related area okay so if the job requires a degree in computer science for example and you have a degree in management information systems that's probably we would work that's pretty close okay but if the job requires a degree in computer science and you have a degree in agronomy probably not going to work okay has to be closely related and the third requirement is the employer is willing to pay you a US Department of Labor mandated minimum wage and that's not seven dollars and forty-five cents an hour it's a lot more than that okay depending on the geographic area where you're gonna be working and the occupation you're gonna be working in okay so any of these three you're missing you don't get your h-1b like I said you could have five degrees but if a department store wants to hire you as a sales clerk it ain't gonna happen that does not require a degree okay so got to have the degree the positions got it require degree and it can't require you the requirement of a degree can't be an employer whim it can't just be because oh my employer says this job requires a degree it has to be an industry stand okay the job has to require degree because of industry standards industry-wide standards okay everybody understand got the degree job requires a degree so what are the requirements of the h-1b so you're limited to working for the employer who sponsored you for the h-1b you can have more than one h-1b you can have a part-time h-1b and a second part-time h-1b or even two full-time h-1bs if you're really a workaholic and you are limited to employment in with generally four six years with all employers so even though you work for three different employers on your h-1b you're going to get a total of six years no matter what now the exception generally is and this is a little less technical than I would like but just to make it simple for you I'll tell you that the exception is if you begin you start the first step of the green card process prior to the end of your fifth year of h-1b then generally you can get much as much h-1b time beyond the six years as you need to complete your green card even if it's several extensions you can get those to complete your green card okay but you've got to begin the process before the end of your fifth year your employment as I said has to be related directly related to your degree program it doesn't necessarily have to be directly related to your last degree program however sometimes we can do an h-1b based on a prior degree even a degree from your home country as long as it's equivalent to a bachelor's degree in the United States can be used to support an h-1b dual intent what is dual intent well as an F or a J you're not allowed to have dual intent you're required to maintain a residence abroad that you have no intention of abandoning which means that every time you go before that thick plastic Plexiglas window at the consulate you have to say yes miss consul yes miss console I will definitely come home after I finished my degree no ifs ands or buts okay once you get h-1b status all that disappears okay you're allowed to have the present intent to be a temporary worker and the long-term intent to stay in the United States so some new things that have been added to the h-1b lately as of January 17th last year 2017 Customs and Border Protection or USCIS US Citizenship and Immigration Services can give you a 10-day grace period on the front of your h-1b and on the end haven't seen this really consistently happening so I really wouldn't worry about it or care about it or or obsess about it and definitely when you're at the when you're at customs and you're coming through don't say to the customs officer hey could you give me that ten day grace period just just let him process your paperwork or her the other cool thing that was added in January of seventeen is that it is possible now to get a grace period between two h-1b jobs and I think the intent here was if you lose your job suddenly without warning you know it may be hard to immediately find a new job in the past prior to this rule if you lost your job without warning you were immediately out of status and you really had to hustle hustle hustle to find a new job quickly in order to stay in the United States well now theoretically you have up to 60 days between jobs but we don't really know we there have been very few instances where we've seen this applied so we don't really know when immigration is going to give it to you and when they're not you just kind of have to ask for it and hope for the best I'm gonna mention this three or four times during the presentation but there is a quota for most h-1bs in the private economy and that means that quota means a limited number that means that every year there is a lottery for h-1b visas and that's what I meant when I said earlier our system is broken and you have to have opt or perhaps academic training too as a j1 to get into the u.s. job market because if you don't have that the way our h-1b lottery works it's very convoluted and most employers would be totally turned off if they had to wait for you for the period of time through the lottery and then through the waiting period okay and another thing I'm going to mention several times is your employer has to apply for you on April 1st of every year that's when the h-1b lottery opens ok there going to be some changes next year and we don't know exactly how that's going to work but probably likewise they're gonna have to apply on April 1st during the first five business days of April we don't know exactly for sure yet but that's probably how it's going to continue to work but definitely this year if you were applying this year you were your employer would need to file on April 1st right on April 1st or one of the first five business days of April again the h-1b because of this lottery situation is one of those situations where no errors are tolerated okay if the check is dated wrong if one signature is missing if one sheet of paper is missing from the application packet it all comes back after the lottery is over you want to make sure that someone who's really super competent is working on your h-1b all right so what are the employers obligations in the h-1b process well first and foremost you know anything that's false in the h-1b packet is going to come back to haunt you so hopefully in this process you will be given an opportunity to review all the paperwork that goes to the government hopefully some employers won't allow you to do that but we do in our office because we want to make sure that everything's correct with respect to you because if it's not then you may not get you know your benefit you may not get a visa abroad so that's really really important very important for example just to give you one example if the employer says and the government paperwork and he's going to pay you seventy thousand dollars a year and then you go to the Consul later for your visa the Consul says okay let me see your W - your w-2 is your wage rack record for a given tax year right or a given calendar year you present your w-2 and the w-2 says you're making 42,000 a year the council says no visa goodbye and so that's the reason why you have to make sure there is no falsehoods there are no falsehoods and that paperwork filed by your employer so they have to also agree to employ you in the geographic location that's set out in the petition h-1bs are geographically limited the reason for that is because of wages okay the wages in San Francisco are not going to be the same as in Lexington Lexington Kentucky for a given occupation so if the employer says you're going to be working in Lexington they can't all of a sudden transfer you to San Francisco without filing new paperwork with immigration okay the employer has to pay the attorney's fees hmm Wow you surprised that right why can't I pay well there's a really good reason I'll talk to you about that in a minute and they also must pay all the filing fees to US Citizenship and Immigration Services so this is a little bit technical a little bit complicated but I want to put it all out there so that you fully understand it most attorneys would just say hey they have to pay a competitive wage well I want you to understand because I'm a teacher so you have to pay the employer has to pay the hire of the actual or prevailing wage what's the actual wage the easiest way to think about these two concepts is small big small big the small is the actual wage that's the wage paid to similarly qualified workers who are similarly employed at the same worksite so small right same worksite small big that's the prevailing wage that is the wage paid to similarly qualified similarly employed people within commuting distance within 100 miles of the job generally okay so that's prevailing wage this is the actual wage so they have to pay the higher of the two why the higher of the two because let's say they're paying $70,000 at the place of employment but they want to bring you in and pay you $42,000 why does that not work to for a similarly qualified position because it would depress the workers the work the weight working conditions and wages of those $70,000 employees if they figured out they could bring in people at $42,000 and put them in that worksite and why do they need to pay people $70,000 at that work site so that's why it's a labor department concept to keep US workers protected that's what it's all about okay so what are the fees the employer has to pay all right filing fees first up so we've got the regular fee for just the h-1b petition itself that's four hundred and sixty dollars then we have something called the anti-fraud fee that was imposed by Congress a few years ago and that's $500 that's to combat fraud in this process then we have something else called the Acquia fee that's that acronym is based on the name of a law which I won't bother to recite but that fee is $1,500 if the employer has 26 or more full-time employees and $750 if the employer has 25 or fewer full-time employees then you have dependents now the fun thing about the dependent fee through in a $70 it sounds like a lot right to just pay for your ol dependents but fun thing about it is you can cram as many dependents in there as you want okay the only thing you can't cram in is more than one spouse okay everybody else goes in the dependent application premium fee fourteen hundred and ten dollars in most cases there is most cases where you're applying for the first time for an h-1b there's usually not a reason to use the premium fee there might be if you're applying for what we call a quota exempt h-1b you might want to use the premium fee to stay work authorized and also if the USCIS takes a very long time to adjudicate your application you may want to pay the premium fee the funny thing about the premium fee gives you 15 day processing but at critical times when you really really need it USCIS suspends the premium fee for h-1bs so you really really maybe want it you know during the lottery during the first five days just to make sure your h-1b is approved but they suspend it during the lottery and usually for a goodly period after that so for h-1b s it's marginally useful but it can be used in certain situations then finally what our attorneys fees well these vary a lot a whole lot but I can tell you one little secret since mr. Trump has come into office he's given us a huge headache with h-1bs he's challenged many of them he's denied them so attorneys have gone up on their fees I know our office has so unfortunately attorney fees are not what they used to be but they vary a lot so I would advise you if you're charged sometimes if you go to work for a small company companies never done an h-1b before they'll say okay you're the foreign employee you go out and find the attorney and bring them back here and you know we'll talk to them and see if we want to hire them if you're charged with that function then look around shop around but don't choose the cheapest and don't choose the most outrageously expensive ok go somewhere down the middle that's what I would advise you to do the outrageously expensive and sometimes it's hard to figure out where these people pull these fees out of but I've heard of h-1bs as high as ten or fifteen thousand dollars the least expensive there's some weird program I think on on the internet called Legal Zoom I think it is among others that you can do your own h-1b for $2.99 okay I would not advise that either so not cheap not expensive go down in the middle but do shop around because there a lot of prices out there okay so who pays for what well as I said before very briefly the employer has to pay for everything why is this because the labor department in quite a few and the federal courts in quite a few to see have uniformly said if you have to pay for it that means guess what it's a reduction in your wages okay and we can't allow that we cannot allow your wages to be reduced by these fees okay so the employer has to pay for everything if they put up a fight when you present this to them we've got a wonderful advisory that sets out all the enormous huge fines that employers have paid over the years because they allowed their employees to pay for the h-1b fees one school system in Maryland was fined three point four million dollars a doctor in Tennessee who employed other doctors one point two billion dollars so you know would the employer rather pay a relatively small amount now or one point two million dollars in a couple years I think the small amount would suit t
em better okay note that the employer is not responsible for your dependents now that's something that you can negotiate obviously if you're negotiating in you know you have a hot skill some sort of hot skill and the employer really really wants you you can certainly negotiate for them covering your dependents you can also negotiate for the premium processing fee which they're not responsible for if it's for your personal reasons if you're just nervous about your h-1b and you want it premium process that's not the employers thing if you want to go to your cousin's wedding and that's why you want your h-1b premium process that's not on the employer but you can again anything in the United States is negotiable absolutely everything so if you're in a job interview and you think and you've got ten offers and you know this employer just once you once you want you you can negotiate a lot so you know be tough okay what's filed and win so when you go into a job interview a lot of times you'll encounter employers that have never heard the word h-1b don't know what a work visa is probably don't even know that you're a foreign national and you need any kind of special treatment okay so you need to know kind of the basic logistics of what's filed when and where so the first thing that goes into immigration is something the labor condition application in the profession we call this LCA for short the labor condition application is all that wage info and notice info that's what it's all about wages and notice it's the Labor Department's form it's filed with the Labor Department they have a statutory authorization to take up to seven business days to process that form okay so generally it does come back within seven business days unless there's some problem with their system but remember that seven business days so you can't go to an attorney on the last day of your opt and say please prepare and file an h-1b for me today theoretically that could be possible but for the labor condition application you can't file that h-1b until you have the approved labor condition application that takes seven business days okay so it's a barrier between you and filing the h-1b paperwork when that once the LCA is approved next up is the entire h-1b packet which contains the approved LCA it also contains information about you your immigration history your qualifications it contains information about the employer it also may contain your dependents applications as well and all the fees and as I said before everything has to be absolutely positively correct or the entire thing will come back from the mailroom and you and your employer are going to be really upset if that happens again I'll tell you that all petitions have to be filed during the lottery period which this year is the first five years five days of April five business days of April next year we don't know exactly how it's going to work it's going to be a little bit different but probably about the same if you're in the United States and you're maintaining lawful status which all of you apparently are you can change your status to h-1b you don't have to leave to get h-1b status in fact in most cases it's a bad idea for an f1 student to to try to get h-1b which we'll talk about in a minute if you're outside the US are you going to be leaving the u.s. right after filing of the h-1b packet for some reason or you're not maintaining lawful status in the u.s. then you'll have to leave get your h-1b visa and come back and I should mention you know all of you except these two are you Canadian you walked in late no okay these two individuals I think we just have to write these two folks over here everybody has to get an h-1b visa stamp before you return to the US if you leave right everybody the only exception to that is Mexico and Canada you can go to Mexico or Canada for up to 30 days 90 percent of you I don't think we have anybody we have anybody here from Syria Libya oh one Syrian oh you can't do it sorry okay Syria Libya and Iran anybody here from Iran okay you can't do it either okay so everybody except these two guys can go to Mexico or Canada for up to 30 days without a visa stamp and come back whoo-hoo it's a you have to have certain documents in your possession you have to be just right but you can go and come for up to 30 days after you get your h-1b status so that's pretty cool you have a conference or something you don't feel like messing with the visa process it's complicated it's lengthy go and come okay [Music] the cursive quota so how many visas are there available year well you're gonna hear in the media that they're 85,000 that is false there are only 78201 new h-1b s for people who are working in the private economy and are subject to the h-1b quota okay the reason why there's 78240 police are master's degree there's about fifty eight thousand two hundred for those who have a u.s. earned master's degree or higher degree there's another quota of 20,000 okay why is there this weird odd number because remember I asked you before about Chile and Singapore Congress in this great wisdom a few years ago decided hey we're going to do free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore so as part of those agreements we're gonna set aside this little cache of visas for them just them 6,800 visas a year go to citizens of Chile and Singapore okay that's called an h-1b one all right and those pieces are available all year round we don't have this quota craziness we do have a quota but it's not as crazy but a surprise surprise Chile in Singapore used that almost all those 6,800 numbers so that's why they're only 78 thousand two hundred pieces per year because of those Chileans and Singaporeans people who are h-1b in the past but you're no longer in h-1b status anybody nobody okay usually in my audiences there are three or four people who were h-1b in the past but if they said to themselves hey I've worked for Microsoft for two years you know it would really help my career if I went back to school and got an MBA and they changed back to f1 status they'd go back to school they get their MBA in two years and they say hey I want an h-1b again now after my MBA well Shazam they've already been counted against the quota because they're an h-1b for Microsoft within the past six years they're not counted again so they're exempt from the quota if you're been an h-1b in the past six years you are not counted again so that's a fantastic thing that you all should remember if that becomes your situation at some point in the future make sure you put in big bright letters at the bottom of your CV your resume I have already been counted against the h-1b quota because that's super important for employers people who work in higher education exempt from the h-1b quota and if you're exempt from the quota by the way you don't have to do this stupid first five days of April thing you can apply anytime of the year and even if you're outside the US and you don't have work authorization it's real simple for the employer to bring you in on h-1b quickly because typically immigration does not suspend premium processing for higher ed so this school every school in the US will find somebody they like in you know England and they'll say make an offer that person and in a few days that person will come in on an h-1b okay so higher ed is exempt employees of nonprofit research organizations and government research organization notice I emphasized research most nonprofits are subject to the quota and most government entities are subject to the quota city of Lexington subject to the quota or not anybody have an idea yes why correct the city of Lexington is not a government research organization they might do some very minor research or they might have outside people who do statistical research on traffic or something like that for them but they're not research is not their central focus so nonprofits again it has to be a nonprofit research organization if the organization has a central focus and its government or nonprofit of research then you're exempt from the quota okay okay you get six years of h-1b with all employers here anywhere outside the United States okay a lot of people there's an urban myth floating around that if you interrupt the six years with some other status you get the entire six years again no that's totally false you have to be outside the US for one year to get the entire six years again so an example I gave before you work two years from Microsoft you go back and get your MBA you have four years left that's all you have cap cap now promised I wouldn't talk a lot about opt because these folks are the experts but I will talk a little bit about cap gap because this this all ties in to your h-1b process okay so what is cap cap opt it is basically an extension of your work authorization on opt and your f1 status in certain circumstances chances okay what are those circumstances well one your opt has to end after the filing date of your h-1b petition so if your h-1b petition is filed on April 1st your opt has to extend at least beyond April 1st it can be a long time after April first but at least beyond April 1st to the h-1b petition filed on your behalf has to be subject to the quota and has to have a start date of October 1st okay because that's when you go into h-1b status you file an April first you don't get your h-1b status until October 1st 3 your opt ends before October 1st okay so if all those things are present and you have requested change of status from f1 to h-1b and you stay in the United States while you're waiting for the h-1b then you get this so-called cap gap protection okay you get an extension of your f1 status and you get an extension of your work authorization this comes in the form of an i-20 which the folks at the international office will be happy to print out for you once they have proof that you've actually your employer has actually filed this h-1b petition for you normally they want you to bring you the receipt or scan and send them a copy of the receipt oftentimes or most times pop up in the CV system right automatically sometimes it doesn't yeah yes so they'll print you out on i-20 do you have to have that i-20 to maintain your status no you don't have to have it but it is nice to have it because oftentimes your employer will demand it because they want to extend your they want to Rivera Phi your employment eligibility verification it's also nice to have it in the future years down the road immigration may not be able to figure out and they're really dumb okay sometimes I may not be able to figure out that you've got this cap out protection they might say okay you were working for this employer from May 15th to October 1st what was your status during that time you go well I had cap cap what's cap cap yeah they do say stuff like that at the district offices so it's good to have that i-20 just to prove what your status us to your employer and immigration but it's not absolutely necessary you won't fall out of status if you forget to request the i-20 big question it comes up a lot can you travel a while and cap gap short answer no the reason because you don't have a plastic card and that's required by immigration regulations for your re-entry to the United States have you heard of people who traveled in cap gap and gotten back probably but they run a huge risk number one of not getting back in number two because of having their change of status tonight if immigration to text that you left the country while that changes status to h-1b was pending it will be automatically denied okay you may get the h-1b petition eventually approved but your cap gap will evaporate and your change of status will evaporate okay can you get an h-1b through starting your own business short answer no long answer it's extremely difficult so I wouldn't you know unless it's your only alternative I wouldn't even consider it it's very very difficult the killer to this situation is you have to set up a board of directors and independent board of directors that has the power to fire you okay so why would you start your own business and set up a board that has the power to fire you that's one of the requirements of immigration so and despite meeting every requirement that immigration says you have to meet often times and I'm just finding the clicker now often times they still deny the case thanks everybody for coming you
