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Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 13:07:48 +0100 (CET)
X-Mailer: VM 6.71 under 21.1 (patch 8) "Bryce Canyon" XEmacs Lucid
Status: RO
I think the best way (path of least resistance) is to let your Company
do the work for you.
In my case, this is how it happened:
1) Got a J1 sponsored by ICSI (International Computer Science
Institute) where I went for a 1-year postdoc.
2) Being there was a great opportunity to do research of course, but
also to make useful connections with the economical environment.
3) Pursuant point 2, got hired by Motorola...
4) Motorola filed a petition for me to obtain an H1-B...
5) ...which got accepted pretty fast (a couple of months)
6) Worked for three years under H1-B
7) Just got renewed for another 3 years (again, Motorola did all the
hard work, hiring compagnies to obtain official translations of my
diplomas, etc... --each petition was about 80 pages long)
8) They are now working on my green card.
Another way is to apply for the diversity lottery, which grants the
green card to some randomly selected individuals ("100% of the winners
have applied...") Although called a "lottery", this application is
FREE, and there are significantly more chances to win. I know at
least three friends who won it, one of whom being now the CEO of a
very succesful company in the Bay Area. Check on
http://travel.state.gov/dv_over.html, and as they say "You may wish to
check this site again starting in August 2000 for updates on the
DV-2002 lottery".
Just a note: some of my colleagues were hired under the "O" visa.
In two cases, this had severe consequences because of a two-year
condition which states that, after completion of the temporary work
made with the "O" visa, these individuals had to go back and spend two
years in their home country before being able to apply for a US visa
again. In one case, this is pretty dramatic with the husband in
Seattle and the wife in Istambul, Turkey. This 2 year condition is
present in other types of visas as well (I think the J1 can have it
too), but the good news is that it applies only to certain countries
(and I think Switzerland is not one of them).
You might want to browse thoroughly through http://travel.state.gov/,
and especially in http://travel.state.gov/faq.html
Cheers,
Pierre
__________________________________________________________________
Pierre Demartines, Ph.D http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~demartin
Temporary address: Motorola INC. European Semiconductor Group
207 Rte de Ferney, PO Box 15, CH-1218 Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 799 1427 Fax: +41 22 799 1307
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Received on Wed Feb 09 2000 - 04:10:00 PST
