Anybody here moved to the US to live?

[absolut_mac]

Anybody here moved to the US to live?

Well, it was a long time ago, January 1979. It was a lot easier back then. It took me three months to get approval for my green card, and about another 9 months before I actually received it. Handed my green card in 5 years later when I became an American citizen - whew, oh happy day!


As True and others have already pointed out, today is a lot different and more difficult. Perseverance and a good lawyer will pay off in the long term. Your best bet is to get in on a trade that's needed, that's how I did it, or even better, become a nurse. As far as I can recall, nurses are in really short demand, so they are on the fast track to get a green card.

Good luck and hang in there, you will succeed eventually.

 

[Amber]

Thanks for the replies, any other trades apart from a nurse that are in short demand? It's hard to find this information out and I don't have many hours in the day to go into depth researching this stuff.

I have spent time living in LA. I really enjoyed it.

Does anyone know how it works when someone sponsors you to come to the US? I am currently doing free filmscore work for a production company in LA and the owner has said she'd consider sponsoring me in the future. Am I living in a dream world?

 

[BoyBach]

Good luck Amber, but remember to be careful when applying for your visa.

 

[0098386]

I'm keeping an eye on this thread. I produce software for a company in America and they're picking up steam at the moment. I'm looking into jetting off to work inhouse with them later this year perhaps. Of course nothing is in stone yet, and the experiences here make it sound like it won't be as easy as I first thought.

I already applied for and have a Polish citizenship due to my strong family ties over there. We had to get that to buy land and build over there too. But that's another story

 

[AndyR]

I am in the same boat as you Amber. I'm 27 and have been trying to move to the USA from the UK for several years now. I used to race professionally and almost qualified for a professional sports visa but lost my drive at the last moment and that was that.

Since then I have been applying for jobs (IT Enterprise Level Support) for 3.5 years as I would need a H1B visa. So far in all that time I have had 2 responses and both of these were no good. The rest either ignore you or say they don't sponsor H1B visa's. I have applied with the bigger companies like Google and M$ but still joy. I have equivalent of a college degree (a-levels) and 9 years work experience but its still really really hard. I'm not even mega fussed which part of the US either, ideally Florida or California, but would really consider anything.

The misses has also been applying for about 12 months now but so far has had no responses at all.

Its getting depressing as its getting harder and harder to make ends meat in the UK as everything is getting SO expensive and the government are so happy to tax every little thing they can. We are living in a shoebox size house which we had the privilege of paying $250k for in a rubbish area, where the equivalent in Florida would get us a 3 bed with a pool.

We are going to keep trying until mid year by which time if nothing has come up, all the H1B's would have been allocated for the year anyway. At which point we are gonna jack it all in and head of to Australia. Its a lot easier to get over there, I have personally known 9 people that have done this within 6 months of making the choice to emigrate.

Keep trying though, you may get lucky, but be prepared for a hard slog. There is nothing to keep us native brits in the UK anymore, hence the 1000 brits per day emigrating out of this crap hole.

Good luck though!

 

[kerpow]

I moved to the US for 3 years from London and had a great time. I won't be much to you though as I was married to an American girl. By all accounts it is extremely difficult, as it is for an American to move to the UK (thats actually why we got married in the first place).

It sounds like you're going about the right way though. I hope it works out for you.

 

[juicedus]

I'm following this thread closely as well. I'm a U.S. citizen but my girlfriend is in Poland. She's currently studying architecture in Krakow and has about 2 years left. Her school has an exchange program with the University of Tennessee and she's trying to do that next year.

I'm looking for what she'll need to do in case things between us don't work out in the long run, just so she's not left high and dry. I know immigration has a lottery for green cards, but unfortunatly Poland and the U.K. have not been elligible for the past couple of years. Here is the link: http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1318.html

 

[YS2003]

The most common visas are (not being technical as there are multiple types of visa under each category):

E visa---investor or essential employee of the company whose business with USA is a significant portion of its sales. For E, you have to be a citizen of the country in which your employer's parent or mother company is located. Example: if you are going to work for an all American company and your citizenship is in UK or Poland, this E visa is not for you.

L visa---transfer employee from the foreign company to its USA branch

H1B visa---college graduate with technical skills (Maximum term: 3 year + 3 year; you need to go home for 1 year and repeat 3 + 3 again; also, there is a annual cap; new year starts in Oct)

There are other visas for professional athletes (extraordinary skills), spouses, immediate families, and etc.

Once you get the work permit for the permanent residency status, you have to wait for the long waiting line. The recent amnesty US govt gave to illegal Mexicans have inundated the immigration system to the max and all the legal immigrants are pushed out because of that amnesty. The current Mexican back log will clog up the system for another 3 to 4 years at least, as those cases associated with that amnesty will take up the permanent residency (aka, green card) visa allocations.

In a nutshell, sponsorship means whoever sponsors you have the financial resources to do so. If a company sponsors you for H1B, E, or L, it has the financial resources to hire you. If you work for a small company, that company may have a difficult to show a satisfactory financial resources to get you a visa you need to work for that company. The bigger companies have no problem with L or E visa mostly.

Even if you cannot get the visa for USA, it won't be the end of the life. There are many other countries where you can bring out your skills to full use. There are too much of unsubstantiated hype about living in USA. I came here under the influence of that hype and I am now looking for some other country for my next career now. I wish I can trade mine (USA) with your position (UK).

 

[Amber]

Does anyone know how this would work? Lets says a Production company wanted to hire a certain UK person to do music work for them. Because of the nature of the work not everyone can do it. Like if a company wanted Bloc Party the government couldn't say find someone who sounds like them could they?

I don't really understand how the whole creative arts situation works.

 

[YS2003]

Does anyone know how this would work? Lets says a Production company wanted to hire a certain UK person to do music work for them. Because of the nature of the work not everyone can do it. Like if a company wanted Bloc Party the government couldn't say find someone who sounds like them could they?

I don't really understand how the whole creative arts situation works.

Based on your background, your case would be a difficult one (to put it bluntly). First, your angle for the visa is tied in with the music related job. There are so many people in USA who are trying to work in that particular field. Your employer's lawyer has to present the case that you are so unique in your musical qualifications that there is no US citizen available to do that job. For art and entertainment related field, the good cases tend to require the applicant has to be the well known or well established person in that industry.

 

[iBlue]

I'm originally from Los Angeles and I moved to the UK. I suppose I see the appeal of both. I can't really add much to this thread that hasn't already been said but I wanted to wish you good luck.