As a general rule, no. It’s considered visa fraud, and can get you barred from the US for life. And you’re correct that it’s extremely complicated for an employer to sponsor a foreign worker - miles and miles of paperwork, documentation, forms and fees. After working in immigration law in the US I laughed when I saw the form - that’s singular, one form - that had to be filled out so I could work in Ireland. Quite simply, nobody who thinks it’s “easy” to immigrate to the US has a clue what s/he’s talking about.
It seems to me that just about every economist out there and every study being done says that Europe needs more workers. And yet every European nation is passing laws restricting immigration. It’s crazy. But it shows you how much power irrational popular politics has.
On preview: sailor, the distinction istara is making is a valid one. The US has “preferences” but, (apart from the extremely rarely granted First Preference status) these only apply to immigrants who already have employer sponsorship. The Canadian/Aus/NZ programmes OTOH don’t require employer sponsorship for anyone who meets what would probably be about the equivalent of the US Third Preference category, though. That’s the difference, and it’s a significant one.
In addition to what **ruadh[/] said, the preferences system in the U.S. is different than the Canadian one that istara is talking about; I don’t know it as well as the U.S. system, but basically Canada gives points for education, knowledge of English/French, being within a certain age range, bomus points for certain shortage occupations, points for having close relatives: it’s like a mixture of the two U.S. tracks (family-based vs. employment-based). If you have enough points to get you above the threshold, you’re in.
(Oh, and you are allowed to apply for a business visitor visa to come to the U.S. for a job interview, but if the inspector gets the idea that you’re using the B-1 to circumvent the requirement to get a work visa rather than just come for your interview and go home, he/she can boot you out and bar you from entering the U.S. ever again.)
Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal
For the U.S., you either have to have a qualifying job offer (a topic worthy of several threads in iteself) or a qualifying relative, plus you have to be able to overcome the annual quota restrictions/backlogs in most categories. It’s one or the other; you don’t get extra points in the family-based categories for having an advanced degree, and you don’t get extra points in the employment-based categories for having a close relative who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
istara, I guess I misunderstood. I thought you were thinking there are no preferences in the USA system. I was focusing on the system of points or preferences not realizing you were focusing on the job offer aspect.