Visa question: How can English boyfriend legally stay/work in US for 6 months?

Factual Questions
1

My cousin’s boyfriend is English (she is American). They are both in their early 20s and almost done with college. He is graduating after the end of the current spring semester and they want him to come over to the United States in the early summer to live until she finishes school. However, they have run into some logistical problems regarding work visas, and I am hoping some of you can provide information/insight/help.

She won’t be done with school until December 2005, so the ideal plan would be for him to come over to the States in June or July and work while she finished school, then they would go back to England in like January 2006. But my cousin says that she researched it and apparently there is no way for him to get a work visa for this period of time. He was already here last year on an internship, and you can only get one internship visa. Also, he won’t be able to get a student visa because he will have graduated.

Other types of work visas have to be sponsored by a company. He could start applying for jobs in his field and get a sponsor, but apparently, according to my cousin, then you have to stay at that company for a certain amount of time, like 2-3 years. They don’t want to do that because they want to go back to England sooner to live and so my cousin can go to graduate school there.

So my question is, how can they be together? Is there any way for her boyfriend to be able to come over here for 6 months until my cousin finishes school? Would it make any difference if they were engaged?

Also, let’s say he did come over on a work visa sponsored by a company, would he be legally obligated to stay for a minimum amount of time? Or could he leave after 6 months? What would the repercussions be?

Thanks for your help, everyone.

2

The pros will be along in a few minutes to fill in details but let me give you the overview from the experience of my wife and myself.

Essentially, there is no easy way. I wish I could say otherwise but I can’t.

Eligibility to work in the U.S. is pretty tightly restricted. Someone with a student visa who is found to be working is then deported; you can’t work on a student visa.

Getting a company-sponsored work visa is quite difficult to do unless you have skills that are close to unique. Assuming that you can find a company willing to make the effort, that company then has to state with some convincing evidence that your set of job skills is not available in the U.S. This is unlikely for someone just out of college.

The quickest and easiest (though with long-term repercussions) is for the boyfriend to get married to a U.S. citizen. He can then file for Adjustment of Status (which is expensive; the initial filing fees for forms is over $1,000) and get an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) which would then allow him to work.

Even in that case, though, getting the EAD takes about 3 months from the date of the original filing.

Unless the pros can suggest some loopholes, the plan you outlined just doesn’t sound very workable. I wish I had something more upbeat to tell you.

3

Maybe he can come over as a tourist for 3 months, then leave for a week, then come back for 3 months. I don’t think that’s completely “legal” or encouraged but as long as someone doesn’t make a long-term (many years) practice of it, I don’t think anyone cares.

I thought there was a moratorium on H1-B visas right now? Not sure.

If they get engaged and he comes over on a “fiancé” visa, I think they have to get married within 90 days.

There’s an immigration paralegal on the board who knows her stuff. I have totally blanked on her name. I’m sure she can answer your questions and will be along soon!

4

http://unitedstatesvisas.gov/ is where the lawyer who got paid for helping me with my Visa application two years ago got the info she sent me. She sent the actual webpage printout via FedEx from Philly to Italy. I don’t even want to know how much she got paid for it, specially since I’d already found the page msyelf.
Some info not in that page:

  • If he gets accepted into the local CC for any courses (even Embroidery 101), he can get a student’s visa but then he can only work for that CC.
  • He will get a provisional SS number first; once his SS application has been reviewed by half the DC alphabet soup (which can take longer than his actual stay, the way reviewing agencies get added to the list), he’ll get a definitive number.
  • A Visa will never force anybody to stay longer than he wants to, the opposite is more likely to be the problem. Be very, very wary of keeping records of any contact you have with the government, when you send the paperwork in, copies of any brochures or webpages you used as sources, etc. Those review processes can cause incredible delays (getting a new SS card used to be 2 weeks tops, mine for two years ago arrived in June and I’d asked for it in January!), you don’t want him kicked out of the country for not having some paper that he applied for but the government does not have the manpower to get through. They are completely overwhelmed by the whole review process.

Best wishes, I absolutely dream of a world where we’ve gotten rid of the whole border setup.

5

Oh, and IANAL but I’ve lived and worked in the US on 3 different occasions and with three different Visas. First time counted as a Cultural Exchange (have you looked into that? the organization I went with was called CampAmerica but they don’t only work for summer camps; there’s others), second I got a student’s Visa, third was one of those company-sponsored Visas (L1, where you can not work for any other company: the visa is actually given to the company, not the worker).

My apologies to the moderators, I keep answering to myself.

6

You can stay for six months legally as a tourist or visitor. I have plenty of family and friends who have done that. As far as I know, the B-2 visa allows you a 6-month stay for vacation, and can be renewed for one more six-month period.

So, yeah, your friend should be able to stay for six months without much hassle.
As for work, that’s tough. Legally…probably not. It’s difficult. The people who I know who are foreign and work legally here are either correspondents on journalist visas (in that case, they’re working for their home country and getting paid by it) or have come over here via their company.

Oh, there is one more possibility!! And this may work for you!!

I participated in a work exchange program with BUNAC.

I took a year off in college, got a temporary work permit from BUNAC, and worked in England for several months. It was easy to do. I don’t know what the rules are, but at the time you either had to be in school, or within 6 months of graduation, which your friend is. As I quickly glanced through the website, it said 18-35 year olds are eligible. I’m almost certain your friend is eligible for a temporary work permit through BUNAC.

That should help.

7

Yes my cousin mentioned BUNAC, but there was some sort of problem with it… I think she said that he couldn’t do it because he will have graduated. However, if it is true as you say that you can be within 6 months of graduation, that would work out perfectly!
Thanks for all your answers everyone. I am really surprised at how hard it is, and I feel so badly for my cousin. They are in love and want to be together, but basically can’t unless they get married (or unless he lucks out with a job that will sponsor him). They aren’t ready for marriage yet, they would like to live together for a while first.

Keep the answers coming though, I still have hope!

8

Alas, no, he wouldn’t be eligible according to the site:

BUMMER! :frowning:

9

Hey, where’s this immigration paralegal I heard about? I need your help!!

<echo> ::crickets chirping::

10

For those offering personal anecdotes, keep in mind that 9/11 changed visa thingies quite a bit. What happened to you or your firend prior to 9/11 may not be applicable today.

Carry on.

11

As a Brit, he can legally stay in the US for 3 months without a visa. BUT, he cannot legally work. Unfortunately the US doesn’t offer any kind of work/holiday visas as the UK does for young people.

12

Before pulling a stunt like this, keep in mind that US Immigration agents are entirely empowered to refuse to admit anyone they have reason to believe is trying to get around the US immigration laws - and you’re giving them a reason to believe it even if you only do this once. You could be lucky and get an agent who doesn’t notice or actually doesn’t care; OTOH, you could find yourself being put right back on the same plane you just got off (and possibly with a notation of your attempted visa fraud being put into the USG equivalent of the “permanent record”, making future entries problematic). Unless you’re really really desperate, it’s just not a good idea.

I’ll let Eva Luna address the rest of the issues as she’s a lot more up to date with the laws than I am.

–ruadh, ex-US Immigration paralegal

13

True. But he could also get the B-2 tourist visa which will give him six months, renewable up to a year. But, alas, no legal work.

I guess BUNAC must have changed their rules. It clearly used to allow people who have just graduated the chance to work. And it wasn’t a summer-only thing. (My work visa was valid for either 6 months or a year). Oh well. :frowning:

14

With a B-2, could he work for a company in the UK? Perhaps there was some job he could get before leaving wherein he could perform all his duties via e-mail or web-based interaction. If he only took his savings with him to America, and had all his earnings automatically deposited into a account which he would not touch until returning home, would the arrangement be legal?

15

So far, everything I’ve seen posted is true. As a UK citizen, he would be able to visit for 3 months on the Visa Waiver program, or he could get a B-2 visa which would normally allow him to stay up to 6 months. However (and this recently happened to an acquaintance of mine), if he applies for a B-2 visa in lieu of the Visa Waiver, they may wonder why he wants the extra time and become suspicious. And keep in mind that even if the B-2 visa theoretically allows a 6-month stay, it’s in the discretion of the immigraiton inspector at the airport - they can cut the time shorter. A B-2 does offer some advantages over the Visa Waiver, though; if he finds a job that will offer him visa sponsorship, or an academic program, he will be able to change his immigration status. If he comes on the Visa Waiver, he will not be allowed extensions or changes of status except in extraordinary situations.

Exchange/internship programs: these normally involve a J-1 visa. Much depends on how the individual program is structured, but it’s not impossible to find one that wiill allow a person to get a second J-1 visa, provided they’ve complied with the terms of the first one. My ex-boyfriend did this, but then he’s a genius research scholar. Long story. It couldn’t hurt to look into other work-study type arrangements; try www.ciee.org (I’m an alum of 2 of their Russia programs, but they do U.S. programs, too, last I checked).

Work visas are going to be very difficult at the moment - the H-1B quota for fiscal 2005 is already used up, so no H-1B visas will be available until 10/1/05 (unless you are Chilean or Singaporean, or have a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. institution). (The H-1B is the primary work visa category for positions requiring a bachelor’s degree or equivalent.) The L-1 only works if you have been employed with an overseas affiliate of the company sponsoring you for at least 1 year out of the past 3 years, so that sounds unlikely. There are no visa repercussions for taking a job/work visa that lasts 3 years and then leaving after a year, but you may get your employer pissed off at you because they’ve invested a lot of money in relocating you and getting you work authorization. For that matter, some companies (my own included) have their own internal J-1 programs for training of foreign employees at their U.S. operations; J-1s are mostly issued by educational organizations, but not always.

Also, student visas may be a possibility - I don’t know what his career plans are, but any accredited academic institution ought to be able to issue the necessary documentation, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be for a degree program - it could be for a certificate program or such. However, he would only be able to work either on-campus, or off-campus if the school certified that the off-campus job was an integral part of his academic program.

Sounds like he should look into other J-1 internship programs and/or the fiance visa. With the fiance visa, though, you only get 90 days before you need to get married and file a green card application, which is pretty limiting.

Good luck, and post again if you have more specific quesitons later on.

Eva Luna, U.S. Immigration Paralegal (and sheesh, can’t a girl go out on a Friday night without being considered a slacker? My new job blocks a lot of outside Web sites, so I can’t read from work anymore.)

16

Oops - that’s what I get for skimming. This is only true at the green card stage, not the work visa stage. For an H-1B, you just have to show that the position requires a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a specific field, and that the applicant has the necessary qualifications.