A GUIDE FOR NEW IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA

Immigration Issues

 

Types of Visas

Summer is a time for travel for most immigrants in and out of the USA. Here is some information to help understand the different categories of visas.

There are over a hundred types of visa categories for visitors to the United States. Often it can be a confusing and even frustrating process trying to understand what kind of visa will work for your purposes. Or if the current visa you’re visiting or working under is still appropriate after a change in situation or lengthy stay. As of the year 2000, 9.5 percent of the United States population was ‘foreign born.’ And in the last ten years, just the number of Asian Indians here has doubled. As you can tell, the INS is dealing with a lot of visas.

I’m going to attempt to give you just enough information to help understand at a high level the two main types of visas, and the sub-types or ‘families’ of visas involved. This article is definitely not meant to be a comprehensive guide to United States visas. You must work with your immigration attorney, immigration specialist or INS agent to determine the right visa for your specific situation. As I’ve mentioned before, every person’s case is different, and regional centers often vary on how they treat cases. But for the most part, here is some simple information that will help you better understand most of the common visas needed when visiting and/or working in the U.S.

First of all what is a visa, really? It’s a pass that allows you to enter the United States either on a temporary or permanent basis. For the most part, we’ll be discussing temporary or ‘non-immigrant’ visas in this article. Permanent or ‘immigrant’ visas are also called green cards. They’re for people who plan to stay permanently in the United States and can be obtained through employers, family, political asylum or even diversity lotteries. Everybody knows that green cards can take a long time to obtain. The person or entity sponsoring the green card must prove that there are no United States citizens available to fill the job of the visa worker. Also, the length of time it takes to approve a green card can vary a great deal based on nationality, sponsorship, and situation.

For that reason, most of you are going to be focusing on non-immigrant visas. And this is where it gets complicated, so bear with me. Non-immigrant visas are divided into sub-types, called families. Each visa family is labeled with a letter, and then a number. So the ‘B’ family of visas includes B-1’s, B-2’s, etc.

In order to qualify for any non-immigrant visa, you have to plan to return to your home country at some point, and you must show that you can support yourself, or be supported, financially while you’re in the United States. There are all kinds of non-immigrant visas for every type of visitor, from students to employees to tourists. Now let’s talk about the main kinds of visas available.

Visas that start with the letter ‘B’ are usually given to visitors. These visitors can be here for business, for which they would need a B-1 visa, or pleasure, which would require a B-2 visa. Often, the visas are issued as a combination of B-1 and B-2 so that the individual can visit both on business and on holiday. With B type visas, your family members need to acquire their own visas, they most often cannot travel under yours. And keep in mind, when you enter the United States you can only have either a business or pleasure status, you cannot have both at the same time. Also, anyone under a B visa cannot be paid by a U.S. company, so keep that in mind.

The next big group of visas are in the ‘H’ family. These visas are for individuals who come to the United States expressly to work. H-1 visas are the most common in this group, and are for highly specialized workers such as computer technicians, engineers, and even fashion models fall in this group. There are also H-1C for nurses, H-2’s for some temporary workers, and H-3’s for trainees. H-4 visas are for the spouse and/or children of a worker entering under another type of H visa.

You may not have heard of “L” visas before, but they are also another guest worker type of visa. “L” visas, usually issued as L-1A, L-1B and L-2 are for workers at an executive or management level, or those with very specialized knowledge, who are needed in the United States to work for an overseas company. L-2 visas are for the families of these workers.

TN visas are for individuals coming to the United States from a country participating in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. TN’s have historically been fairly easy to obtain, as long as you’re from Canada or Mexico. A TD is the spouse or child of a TN; they can be from any country as long as the TN is from Mexico or Canada in most cases.

And finally, F visas are for academic students. F-1 for the student, F-2 for their family.

I’d like to offer a word of caution here, on a topic that I see far too often end in heartbreak and deportation. Make sure you understand what your current status is in terms of your occupation here in the United States at all times. Perhaps you’ve entered the country as a student or temporarily under a B-1 visa. And circumstances change so that you’re now working in the U.S., or staying much longer than expected. Make sure you apply for the appropriate visa. Don’t try to get around the rules by working under your old visa. Or even worse, working without one at all. The INS will find out, and the penalties can be severe.

As I mentioned earlier, always check with your immigration attorney or specialist to make sure your current status and visa match. And don’t respond to pressure from an employer that may ask you to look the other way on your visa. Insist on always knowing your status, and that’s its correct. For more information on visas and visa types, visit the United States immigration website at www.uscis.gov. There are some excellent guides you can download.

Finally, I get asked all the time if there are times when you can get a permanent visa approved quickly. These are tricky; people with exceptional abilities such as athletes or musicians can sometimes get a green card without sponsorship. Those under political asylum can qualify as well. The most common scenario, however, is that an individual will work using an H-1B, be sponsored by his or her company and wait in line for a green card.

Emily Fossey has nearly a decade of immigration processing and consulting experience. She is the President of Advanced Immigration Solutions, an immigration specialist firm. For more information, visit www.immigration-solutions.org or email Emily directly at efossey@immigration-solutions.org.

The above articles are intended to be for general informational purposes. You should seek competent legal advice for your specific immigration situation.

Victoria J. Suh, Esq. *
*Certified Specialist Immigration Law
State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization
Tsoi & Associates, Lawyers
3580 Wilshire Bl, Ste 720
LA, CA 90010
Tel: 213-387-2888/Fax: 213-387-2882
email: usvisalaw@aol.com