How to get Business Migration to United States in 2017 – 2018?
For the past few months, I have been asked this question by Business and professional people quite frequently that they want to visit/work/migrate to United States for Business purposes. Each matter is different and requires a detailed discussion before any opinion can be formulated.
What is Business Migration?
Business Migration is a very broad term and there could be various routes through which the Business Migration goals can be achieved.
Non Migrant Temporary Business Visa
The migration plan is dependent upon the goals of an applicant. There are Visa categories offered by United States in which a prospective Business owner can visit United States to engage in Business Meetings with its clients or business associates. The perfect visa for such applicants could be B1 visa which is a Temporary Non Immigrant Visa often valid for upto six months or for the time granted by Visa Officer at the time of entry in United States. Business visitor in the said category can not engage in paid work activities.
Work Visa (H1B)
The second category visa for the perspective Business applicant could be H1B Visa, which allows employment of an applicant as an employee with the employer sponsoring the position for the candidate. There are 65000 visas allocated to the foreign workers who do not have Masters Degree and an additional 20000 visas for the master or advance degree holders that are often selected by lottery system since the number of the applicants applying are more than the visas allocated in the category. This visa allows the applicant to work as long as his visa status is active. This visa category also makes an applicant eligible for the Permanent Residency application under Employment Based (EB1/2/3) permanent residency visas depending upon their future employment and roe in the Organization.
Intra Company Visa (L1)
The third category visa for the high level employees such as decision makers, CEO’s, Managers could be L1 Visa. Here, the employee can take intra company transfer within the global offices of a corporation. The visa category allows an applicant to work for the sponsoring employer to manage day to day operations. This visa category is also a working visa category allocated to employees of global corporations or to the employees of corporations having global presence either directly or through Parent Subsidiary route. This visa also entitles the applicant to apply for Employment Based First Preference Visa (EB1) for Permanent Residency.
Investment Visa (EB-5)
The Fourth Category Visa which is quite popular amongst the Business professionals is Employment Based Fifth Preference Visa also known as EB 5 Visa. A perspective migrant can invest in its own business or can also invest through a Regional Center route. The amount of investment is dependent upon the location of Business. The amount of investment in Targeted Employment Area (TEA) is $500,000 and Non Targeted Employment Area (Non – TEA) is $1,000,000 as of today. There is however a proposal to enhance the minimum investment amount in future. The program through various extensions have been authorised till September 30, 2017.
Our Consultancy
We, at Cross Border Legal, render Legal, Administrative and Financial opinions with regards to the EB 5 program for the Business Migrants seeking to setup their own business or invest in a project through Regional Center Route. There are various condition which are required to be fulfilled by the perspective investor to qualify for the visa category. The investment proposed by the perspective migrant has to be “On Risk” and Passive Investments do not qualify for the program. Similarly there is also a requirement of creating and maintaining ten new jobs through the proposed investment by the investor.
Apart from the said conditions, an investor also needs to provide the “Source of Funds” for the investment made by her. This is very crucial for the success of the grant of EB 5 visas. We provide our experienced advise and help you to make document Source of Funds as are required for the purposes of investment visa.
It is very important to understand the requirements and goal of the Business Migrant before we can provide our opinion to the perspective investor. We strongly believe that a preliminary conference is important to understand such needs and offer consultancy to the applicants to choose the right approach to achieve the migration goals.