Entrepreneurs FAQs

Watch the Video on this FAQ: Current immigration/visa options for entrepreneurs

Video Transcript

A few options for Entrepreneurial Visas:

You could come in on E visa, H visa, O visa or TN visa and eventually get a green card based upon various other options including EB-1A if you are extraordinary qualified individual or EB-5 if you are making the required amount of investment and creating the jobs necessary under the rule. 

You can also come in through L-1A if you have a foreign company you have worked outside for that company for at least one year as an executive or managerial employee, you can start a company or buy a company in the United States and transfer yourself or your key managerial employees or employee to the USA. L-1 is the fastest way of getting a green card because L-1 is potentially processed within a few weeks because you can file premium processing and once you are in the USA you can file a EB-1 based green card which will get you seen through the process normally within a year, sometimes as little as three to five months. More ...

Note: This is a verbatim transcript of the referenced audio/video media delivered as oral communication, and, therefore, may not conform to written grammatical or syntactical form.

You can change employers any time if you are a self-applicant and will continue to work in your stated area of national interest.  But NIW priority date will take the same time as a normal EB-2 application does.  See: http://www.immigration.com/visa-bulletin under employment-based category 2.

See clip from Attorney Rajiv S. Khanna's conference call video that addresses this question.

https://youtu.be/F0YZD8zWm88?t=694

FAQ Transcript:

First of all in my view on passive investment where you are just putting in money and have no control over what happens to the investment it is ok to do that on H-1.   So if you buy stock in IBM that’s OK because you don’t get to manage or run IBM just because you bought 200 dollars worth a stock. So passive investments were you don’t actually control the investment or the business activity they are ok for H-1.

But when you buy and rent out a house I think that would be objectionable. I think that could be considered to be a violation of your status. What if you invested money in a small company like say a two person company when you own 100 percent  stock but you are not managing and somebody else is managing I think that would be ok (in fact closer to be ok). But the question, can you start your own IT company...well if you did in a partnership and if you were a passive investor and if you want to work for that company you would have to have a true employer-employee  relationship with the company. That means somebody should be able to file you and then a H-1 concurrent, H-1 for your own company. So the decision tree is:  Is my investment active or passive. If it is passive no problem I can invest even if  I am on H-1. If it is active I would have to do an H-1B for my own company and make sure I have an employee employer relationship.

I am finding that government is very much more understanding or flexible when it comes to radical practices, dental practices, were you own your company but you have somebody who can fire you whether  it is board of directors or president where you could be fired as long as that is there having a company on H-1 is possible.