Canadian wanting to work in the USA

Baldr

Hello PA forums! I'm hoping to find some insight from people who have gone through what I'm wanting to do, and/or links to good resources on the subject.

I'm Canadian, my girlfriend is American. I'm looking to find work down in the United States and the US Citizen and Immigration Service's Green Card page looks kind of dire.

I'm not looking to become a permanent resident (yet), for now I would like to spend some months in the States and earn money at the same time, instead of having to go without income when visiting.

Thanks in advance all!

P.S. Please don't tell Lou Dobbs.

clearsimpleplain

I hate to say it, but unless you have some really great qualifications for high-demand jobs you are going to have a very hard/impossible time finding work legally, at least in my experience.

What I did when I was doing the same was I would work in Canada for ~6 months at a super high paying but hellish job in a mine up north, then fly down and live for ~6 months. Did it almost 3 years; we're married now and living in Canada, kid on the way and prepping a move back stateside, so it can definitely work. But my understanding is that to work in the States you have to at least have a Green Card (which basically means you're a permanent resident).

Zeon

Theres no legal way unless youre an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer or something with a degree. You can get lucky and get a company to sponsor you but unless you have friends who can set you up with a "Canadian Cuisine Chef" job or something (and willing to pay to sponsor you), youre pretty shit out of luck.

Or if your family is rich and youre willing to invest money into the economy.

Otherwise, no go.

Dont risk it with cash only jobs or just trying to live with your girlfriend and not working. If you get caught and get deported, you wont be able to go back, ever.

clearsimpleplain

Zeon wrote: »

Dont risk it...just trying to live with your girlfriend and not working. If you get caught and get deported, you wont be able to go back, ever.

It's actually legal to live with her without a job, but only something like 6-8 months per year.

Elin

My friend married a Canadian. It took something like a year before he was allowed to work here. A year of paperwork and several thousand dollars in fees. It would be best if you could make a monthly budget of what you'll need to live on it the US and save that up working in Canada before you head here on a tourist visa.

Zeon

clearsimpleplain wrote: »

Zeon wrote: »

Dont risk it...just trying to live with your girlfriend and not working. If you get caught and get deported, you wont be able to go back, ever.

It's actually legal to live with her without a job, but only something like 6-8 months per year.

Yeah, its called being a tourist. You have to come back to canada periodically. I meant dont just go down there with the intention of staying until you get married (assuming its not like 2 months from now).

TomeWyrm

IF you are a skilled worker of some sort, and IF a company has an opening that you can fit perfectly, and IF that company is unable to find a US citizen to fill that roll after some time of publicly advertising as such, and IF said company is willing to sponsor you, you can apply for an H1-B visa, which will allow you to live/work in the US for a period of time. There are other visas (student, training, etc.) that will allow you to live here, but if you're looking to work, an H1-B is pretty much what you're looking for. You can eventually apply to be a permanent resident (green card), but that will take time. Overall the process is lengthy and pretty damn expensive.

As others have said, you can easily secure tourist visas for the US with a long validity, but you CAN NOT work with such a visa, and if you somehow manage to get a job and get caught, you'll get booted from the country and will be unable to come back for some time. Definitely don't suggest taking this risk.

So the question is, what marketable skills do you have?

Marriage is an option of course, but such marriages are really scrutinized, and you have to go through periodic examinations and interviews and it's sort of a huge headache. I'm also not 100% sure how easy it is to get a job if you're married to a US citizen but are not one yourself...

There are a few forums out there for people in the process of securing H1-Bs, so you might want to look around and see if you can find any more specific advice/information. Such places can also give you more insight into what sort of costs and timeframes you'd be looking at.

Ethea

TN or H1B visa are your best bets.

TN requires you to have a job lined up with a company in one of the following fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TN_status. Make sure the company you are hired by understand the process.

H1B are far more involved and the 2011 batch has already be done, so you would need to line up a job and apply for Oct 2011 before I believe April.

Zoolander

If you fall under the category of Professional Worker, you can stay in USA for 3 years on a NAFTA TN visa. You'd have to find employment by a US company first though, and they have to provide supporting documents and such as detailed on the site.

Basically find a job that will take you in on a TN visa, stay 3 years, you can apply for US citizenship during that time.

Ethea

Zoolander wrote: »

If you fall under the category of Professional Worker, you can stay in USA for 3 years on a NAFTA TN visa. You'd have to find employment by a US company first though, and they have to provide supporting documents and such as detailed on the site.

Basically find a job that will take you in on a TN visa, stay 3 years, you can apply for US citizenship during that time.

You can't apply for US citizenship while on a TN visa because TN is not dual intent. TN is for temporary work only and starting any part of the process to become an American citizen voids your TN status.

Dr. Frenchenstein

apparently that sponsorship is really expensive, so unless you got recruited or something, most companies would probably rather have an american citizen do the job, b/c it's cheaper. we had someone from india doing the work visa thing, and she was a moron. So we stopped sponsoring her visa and she had to leave the company and find a place that would, or take her ass back to india.

If you can find a headhunter that will shop your resume to american companies, that is probably your best bet. or be a travel nurse. there are a ton of canadian nurses down here.

bowen

How serious is this relationship? Because there's always the possibility of marriage.

It's still a hugeeeeeeeeeee deal. I don't advocate getting married for the citizenship but if you guys were already entertaining the idea it may be the better route than getting a visa.

Ethea

In the tech field, the majority of companies cover all expenses relating to getting your Visa.

Divebommah

I haven't read the rest of the thread -- I'm leaving to go on vacation for a few days in 20 minutes -- so a million apologies if I'm duplicating effort here. Just wanted to share my experience of marrying an American and becoming a full-fledged US citizen.

NOTE: At the beginning of this process we were engaged. Also, this was being carried out in 2002 during a shit-ton of immigration reform and craziness in light of 9/11. Things may have gotten better or worse. ALSO, the timing of a lot of this is fuzzy. It took us six years for me to become naturalized and it was almost constant work -- the amount of time between/during steps is super fuzzy.

1) We decided we wanted to move to the US and live here. After research we determined that the US gov't wanted to know A LOT about you. Health history (they will take blood samples), financial problems, criminal background, etc. Once all that info was collected, forms were filled, we sent them in and got an appointment to come to an embassy. We went to the local embassy and said "Okay what now?"

2) They basically said they want to see proof that we are serious about living in the US. Proof means buying or renting a home. They gave us 90 days to do this. ANOTHER condition of this was that we had to get married within 90 days of landing in the US. Oh, and to show you are REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS they asked us to move the majority of our assets to the US. To us that meant selling our house and moving money.

3) Imagine packing up your entire life, everything, and moving to another country. This will be an epic memory in your life that will cause you to question your faith in humanity.

4) Once you're settled, and married, you need to provide proof and a slew of new documents before you can get resident alien status. This gives you a number like a social security/social insurance number that allows you to work and the gov't to collect taxes. You need to not commit any crimes, pay your taxes, and not leave your wife for a certain period of time with this status (can't recall but I think it was at least a year) before you can get your green card (though it isn't called that anymore) which requires a lot of paperwork. The gov't will want proof that you are settled and integrated -- ie. they will want pictures of you in social situations with americans. They will want letters from americans stating that you are integrated and happy and not just doing it for citizenship.

5) Once you get your green card you can kinda relax. You're basically a citizen. Except the gov't can kick you out of the country for whatever little thing they want. You need to be on the green card for a few years before you can apply for citizenship status. At that point you're taking the citizenship test, then you get to be sworn in.

6) Once you're a citizen the gov't can't just throw you out of the country any time they like. Heh. :?

At the end of the process we spent about $4,000 and had a three foot tall stack of paper. THROW AWAY NOTHING, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. If you don't think you can both be anal about the details, it may be worth your while to hire a lawyer. We did it without one but it was pure hell.

That's it, good luck

Baldr

Wow lots of great info, you guys rock!

We've been together for about 3 years, I spent about 5 months with her in '09-'10.

Marriage has come up but neither of us are too interested in getting hitched just yet. Getting married just to get me into the country is not something we want to do.

I'm not a "Professional" and I'm sure there's nothing I could do that they wouldn't be able to find a willing and able American for.

My second idea was a student thing, does anyone have experience as an alien schooling in the States? It'll be in Massachusetts, if that makes any difference.

Thanks all!

clearsimpleplain

Once again, money. Being an international student will mean you'll be paying a lot more for tuition than a local, usually at least twice as much. But it's pretty doable, especially if you're looking at doing something legit. A friend of mine went to school in the states for speech pathology, for example, and although the costs were great she married a guy she met there and school was apparently paid off in a few years after she entered the work force. She was lucky though, and worked hard before she got in school to have everything sorted out.

It's not easy, but since when is easy fun?