Silicon Valley Immigration Lawyer Blog

Today, U.S. Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar proposed a new immigration law that Silicon Valley companies and investors have long supported - the Startup Visa. The Startup Visa Act would allow a foreign national entrepreneur to receive a two-year visa upon showing that a qualified U.S. investor is willing to invest at least $250,000 into the entrepreneur's startup venture. If after two years the entrepreneur can show that the venture created at least 5 full-time jobs in the U.S., and attracted an additional $1,000,000 in additional investment capital, or achieved $1,000,000 in revenue, then the entrepreneur could obtain permanent resident status.

Many Silicon Valley venture capital firms signed onto a letter to the Senators in support of the Startup Visa Act. The letter describes how the immigrant entrepreneurs they have tried to work with often cannot obtain a visa that will allow them to remain in the U.S. and develop a new business. When the immigrant cannot obtain the visa and leaves the U.S. to start their company in a different country, the loss to the U.S. is substantial. The jobs that would be created by the new venture, which could easily number in the hundreds and thousands over the first decade of a successful company, are simply lost.

Senator Kerry's Press Release today quotes him as saying, ""Global competition for talent and investment grows more intense daily and the United States must step up or be left behind. Everywhere Dick Lugar and I travel for the Foreign Relations Committee, we see firsthand the entrepreneurial spirit driving the economies of our competitors. Creating a new magnet for innovations and innovators to come to the United States and create jobs here will offer our economy a double shot in the arm - robust job creation at home and reaffirmation that we're the world's best place to do business."

Continue reading "Startup Visa Would Help Silicon Valley" »

In my experience as a Palo Alto immigration lawyer, the number one question is the obvious one: How long will my visa application take? The USCIS service centers provide bi-monthly tables that show how long different visa applications should take. The most recent table for the California Service Center is below.

USCIS CSC Processing Times Table

The column on the far left shows the actual Form number, and then the type of visa application. The far right column shows either a duration of months, or a specific date. If the time frame is shown as a duration of months, this mean that the time period is the USCIS' "goal" for that type of application, and that they are meeting the goal, for the most part. If the time frame is shown as a specific date, it means that the USCIS is not meeting its "goal" for that type of application, and that the date shown is the submission date of the last application adjudicated.

For example, the chart above shows that an I-129 visa application for an O-1, Extraordinary ability nonimmigrant, is taking approximately two months to adjudicate. For I-90 applications to replace a Permanent Resident Card, the California Service Center last adjudicated an application submitted August 17, 2009.

Continue reading "Silicon Valley Visa Applicants Want to Know: "How long will it take?"" »

Today's New York Times article, Report Warns Silicon Valley Could Lose Its Edge, looks to the factors that have slowed economic recovery in Silicon Valley. The article attributes the down economy in large part to the recession, reporting that Silicon Valley lost 90,000 jobs from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009, and that unemployment is higher than national levels. Other measures of the down economy are the decrease in the number of patents from last year, as well as the fact that last year saw the lowest number of initial public offerings of stock in technology companies since 1970.

Discussing how the Silicon Valley economy may recover through new innovation and green technology, the article points out that over 60% of Silicon Valley scientists and engineers are foreign-born. However, the region saw a decrease in immigration by 34% last year. Countries are luring their own citizens back home, as discussed in an earlier post "Silicon Valley Immigrants Included in Talent Exodus". At the same time, the U.S. is increasingly making it difficult for temporary foreign workers to come on an H-1B or L-1 visa, as well as subjecting intending immigrants to long queues.

The article highlights one of the key solutions to this "brain drain" problem - increase the level of education to U.S. students so that the U.S. is not as reliant on foreign talent. However, the article points out that 5 percent fewer California high school graduates are meeting requirements for entrance to state universities, the number of science and engineering degrees has leveled off and California general fund spending on higher education dropped 17 percent last year.