american visa via sayit

wheres me jumpa

hey,

ive been looking into getting a visa to work full time in america. just noticed sayit offer a package for the following...

THE INTERNATIONAL PRACTICAL TRAINING PROGRAMME and the H2B Visa.

has anyone gone through sayit or usit for either of these programmes? im guessing i have to find a job offer myself so a further question would be how hard is it to find a job offer before you go?

tia

jumpa

penexpers

The H2B visa is where a job is found for you and you can only stay in that job for the duration of your visa. If you quit the job, you have to leave the country. Generally the jobs offered are pretty poor, mostly theme park work that pay around $6 an hour (plus tips, if any). Also the visa itself is pretty expensive IIRC.

Our man in Havana

Is that the visa where if you hold it for 5 years you can apply for citizenship?

Larianne

Bond-007 wrote:

Is that the visa where if you hold it for 5 years you can apply for citizenship?

No, from what I can remember the H2b visa is for seasonal jobs in America like another poster said in theme parks etc.

The visa you are thinking of are the H1b visa which are given to people holding degrees or diplomas (plus 2 years experience). There's a cap on the number given out and they are hard to get. You need to apply straight away as the visa applications take a while to get processed. And then I think they are given out from October 1st.

Getting a visa to work in America is extremely difficult. But there are ways around. The best thing to do is find a really good immigration lawyer and they will help with the application. I think the US authorities look on applications more favorably that have gone through a lawyer.

Go to www.visapro.com and it gives you a breakdown on all the visas.

DublinWriter

penexpers wrote:

The H2B visa is where a job is found for you and you can only stay in that job for the duration of your visa. If you quit the job, you have to leave the country. Generally the jobs offered are pretty poor, mostly theme park work that pay around $6 an hour (plus tips, if any). Also the visa itself is pretty expensive IIRC.

BS. Pure BS.

The H1B Visa costs the US company employing you around $5,000 dollars in legal fees for them to process. You should pay nothing yourself.

Cheap labour is plentiful on the ground in the states. Generally the H1B is used by US to bring over skilled professionals from overseas, usually in the IT and medical sectors.

The applying company must make a strong case that then cannot get the equivalent skills from a U.S. Citizen readily (I'm not sure of the exact wording).

And yes, after 5 years working in the States working under any legal Visa you are entitled to apply for Citizenship.

Back in 1998 I was offered a job from a company in Boston. It was only when I researched the ins and outs of the H1B that I realised that if I decided to leave the company then I'd also have to leave the country. That's the big draw back with H1Bs. There is a legal mechanism to transfer your H1B from one US company to another, but it's quite a complex process.

nesf

Um, he was talking about the H2B, not the H1B...

wheres me jumpa

hi, thanks for the replies.

just got an email from sayit with more info. turns out if you go through this programme its actually a j-1 visa they issue you with. in terms of an immigarion lawyer, is it possible to find a lawyer here or should i travel to the states first?

homeOwner

DublinWriter wrote:

And yes, after 5 years working in the States working under any legal Visa you are entitled to apply for Citizenship.

Nope not true. When you hold a valid working visa (one of the Hs - not a J1) you can begin the process of getting a Green Card by application (ie outside the lottery program). Most times your company will pay for it if you have been working with them for more than a year but you can get your own lawyer and do it yourself. It costs alot of money and can take up to 5 years depending on where you are living in the US. Once you get the Green Card and subsequently pay taxes in the US for a period of 5 consecutive years you can then apply for citizenship.

homeOwner

Bond-007 wrote:

Is that the visa where if you hold it for 5 years you can apply for citizenship?

Thats the Green Card. You can apply for it free through the visa lottery programme or get sponsored by a company you are working for over in the US while holding on of the H visas. It can take up to 5 years depending on where you apply from.

homeOwner

wheres me jumpa wrote:

hi, thanks for the replies.

just got an email from sayit with more info. turns out if you go through this programme its actually a j-1 visa they issue you with. in terms of an immigarion lawyer, is it possible to find a lawyer here or should i travel to the states first?

A J1 is a student exchange programme visa and does not (as far as I know) allow you to proceed in applying for a green card (which is needed before you can get citizenship). You need to be on a H visa. If you have a degree you could use the time you are on your J1 to find yourself work in a company that will sponsor you for a H visa and from there you can apply for a Green Card etc..... It is going to take you at least 10 years living over there to get citizenship.

wheres me jumpa

im not actually seeking citizenship. im just looking to work over there for 2 maybe 3 years. ill have a honours degree in i.t. and a 6 months placement under my belt by the time i travel. with this in mind, how tough is it going to be for me to get a visa?

DublinWriter

wheres me jumpa wrote:

im not actually seeking citizenship. im just looking to work over there for 2 maybe 3 years. ill have a honours degree in i.t. and a 6 months placement under my belt by the time i travel. with this in mind, how tough is it going to be for me to get a visa?

You'll need a green card, and you have only three options to get this:

a) You'll need to have an employer willing to take you over under the H1B/H2B Visa programmes (as discussed above)

b) Try the annual Green Card lottery (you can apply as many times as you like, but millions apply for the 100,000 or so cards on offer.

c) Marry an American.

homeOwner

wheres me jumpa wrote:

how tough is it going to be for me to get a visa?

The question is how tough will it be for you to get a job.
This is the delimma that thousands of people before you have faced. You cant live in the US without a visa, you cant get a visa without a job and it is very hard to get a job without first getting yourself over there and spending alot of money on accomodation and flights unless you know people you can stay with and are very lucky. Having said that it is not impossible...

easiest route is get a J1 (through someone like USIT if you are still a student) and use the time over there to look for a "real" job that will be sponsored. if you cant get a J1, the lottery is your only real hope.

Having said all that I know someone who went over to NY on a holiday, spent two weeks there sleeping on a friend's couch, interviewed with several companies (he had these lined up before he went), had a job offer by the time his two weeks were up, came back to Ireland and waited for the company to organise a visa, then quit his job here and moved over.

good luck

Our man in Havana

Marry an American? Don't go there, ever see the movie Green Card? It's a 100 times worse now. I speak from experience there.

As homeowner said, the only real option is to get a J1 and look for a real job. They are very very strict about this now. You must get employer to prove that no US citizen is availble to take the job.

The lottery is an extereme long shot.

wheres me jumpa

how exactly do they prove that? obviously the greater the skills i have the easier it is. but have they an index of acceptable positions? i.e. is there an area i should be aiming for in my studies?

thanks for all the replies.

Our man in Havana

wheres me jumpa wrote:

how exactly do they prove that? obviously the greater the skills i have the easier it is. but have they an index of acceptable positions? i.e. is there an area i should be aiming for in my studies?

thanks for all the replies.

They prove it by a process called Labour certification. Basically the job must be advertsied in newspapers and some govt agency similar to FAS. If after a period of time usually about 6 months no one suitable applies then the employer can apply for your visa.

Its an extermely complicated process which really needs a lawyer involved.

penexpers

DublinWriter wrote:

BS. Pure BS.

The H1B Visa...

Next time, might I suggest that you read my posts a bit more closely before calling them BS.

homeOwner

wheres me jumpa wrote:

how exactly do they prove that? obviously the greater the skills i have the easier it is. but have they an index of acceptable positions? i.e. is there an area i should be aiming for in my studies?
QUOTE]

If you get a job that requires a degree (ie not theme park work or bar work or similar) the company will take care of all that for you. I dont know if there is a list of required skills but check out www.ins.gov

If you major aim in life at the moment is to be able to live and work in the US, you should pick a recognised degree course in business, accounting, technology or science. These translate well to the US market. It helps to get a Masters or have at least a years work experience in your field before you go looking to get a job there. Alot of the large banks will even take people with say a Degree in Physics and train them in IT or banking. There are major recruitment drives in the US for graduates and they take people from various diciplines on two year schemes but these jobs are usually all taken mid-way through the final year of a course and you need to be top of the class to get them. I dont know how you find info on this other than contating large US corporations and asking them for info on their grad recruitment drives.

I would however question the sense of picking a course based on getting into the US instead of picking a course you really want to study. In my opinion having worked in NY for 4 years there are just as many good oppertunities over here (ireland) and in some cases even better ones here. I dont know your reasons for wanting this so badly but I think you should really think about what you want to do in life before you commit to a 3 or 4 year degree course based on wanting to go to the US now.