I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney, who does work for YC and startups. AMA

hi Peter!

how long does 221(g) administrative processing take to complete in your experience? anything one can do besides waiting (Russian citizen working in tech, almost 1yr without adjustments)?

Thanks for doing an AMA!

Should folks on H1B visas who have an ongoing green card application via PERM be concerned at all?

Would you advise not traveling until the i-495 is filed?

Any ideas how Eb3 final action date will move in the future? I noticed that for 2023 onwards more than 80k perms were approved.

Do you have any guidelines for the amount of $ expected for the investment required for people applying for the E1 Treaty Investor Visa?

Are you seeing any changes in the difficulty of the EB1A, or is it about the same as in the previous administration?

I won the DV lottery do you know of any companies that are willing to hire remotely and then help with relocation to the USA?

I'm moving to the US on a K1 visa, is it possible to expedite an EAD on the basis of a job offer in an AI field?

Hi. Practically, do I need to be an oficially employee for my employer to file H1B, or contractor is ok?

Were there any changes in requirements for O visa recently? Did they remove the job offer requirement?

Hi peter, do you use any legal specific ai software ? Do you use ChatGPT in your work?

Honest question. If I live in a country with little to no Capital Gain Tax, why would I want to move to US other than job opportunity?

How hard is it to get approval for an o1 visa with no bachelors degree?

How AI ( LLMs, Agents ) can help you?

If I forge birth documents, will I get caught?

Hi Peter,

Thanks for all that great insight.

I'm currently a Swiss national on E2 with my own biz but looking at partnering with an American (the form could be a partnership or S-corp but it's not set in stone.. Recommendations welcome. State of CO or potentially Wyoming). All the work I do for them currently is consulting under my biz (SMLLC) as investment but apart from my biz paying for some PCB manufacturers there's no flow of money, just a lot of time.

Now my current E2 business has only me as an employee and I'm not sure how the chances of renewal look in 1.5 years if stays that way. End goal is a good partnership on the new venture and US citizenship but AFAIK there's no path from E2. Do you recommend reapplying for a new E2 with the new venture or extend the current one or something else entirely?

From what I understand from the last E2 is that the embassy prefers majority control from the treaty investor which we'd have to discuss if that's a hard requirement

Thanks!

Hey Peter.

Is there any way for immigrants to avoid the 27 vaccines mandated by the CDC?

Hi Peter, thanks for doing these AMA's.

There has been so much in the news recently, both on immigration, birthright citizenship, potential suspension of habeas corpus, lack of due process, the effective setup of stateless regions (El Salvador), and other aspects that all boil down to a question that seems to be on a number of people's minds and centered on a single question.

While this is more of a generic question, it'd be nice to hear from an actual attorney that's practiced law.

When we speak of a 'rule of law', and its benefits to society, its generally understood from Civic's classes we all had to take, that there are components that must be met, which are not met under a 'rule by law'; the latter which is more generally understood to be common to totalitarian regimes where they do what they want with the tacit approval of kangaroo courts, usually with some sort of reference to Lavrentia Beria's infamous quote, "Show me the person I'll show you the crime".

While there is some debate on the specific components of a 'rule of law', they almost all require: Independent Objective Judiciary, Equality under the Law, Access to Justice, Fundamental Rights, and Transparency (if I'm remembering my civic's correctly).

The primary purpose and benefit to society of such being non-violent conflict resolution.

In many respects, in the past few decades, Judicial activism seems to have broken the first, Access to bring an action now requires access to a lawyer which in many cases is a retainer of an amount that exceeds the average person's yearly salary (unspent), Transparency seems to have largely vanished behind paywalls, bad laws, and contradictory readings.

The last remaining two are equality under the law, and fundamental rights which are directly tied to those other properties, and have been degraded by corporations in their legal actions and lobbying as a whole over time. The remaining components seem in dire jeopardy with stateless regions, which the court doesn't seem capable of addressing (given the other failures that have occurred over the past 20 years that remain broken).

I hear all the time that we have a country that has a rule of law, but that isn't what the average person is seeing when they look at these things objectively.

Just so you know, I've reached out to numerous attorney's for various contract issues over the years, the most recent related to professional certification where the company clearly failed in their obligations, but they also apparently have received broad indemnification via their government contracts. I mention this, so the perception is not just based on a trusted news initiatives media alone, but also backed by my own conversations seeking services that came from my state BARs referral service.

Is there something wrong with my understanding here? Do we actually still live in a rule of law? If my understanding is right, it doesn't seem like we do anymore.

Not legal advice but I'm a US citizen and when I've refused to answer their intrusive questions the worst that has happened to me is they imprisoned me, stripped me naked and searched me, got a fraudulent warrant for an internal body search, and then sent me the bill after dumping me at the border when they found nothing.

Enjoy.

All past Peter's AMA discussions:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=I%27m%20Peter%20Roberts%2C%20i...

If you were an immigrant with legal status who lives in the US, would you feel OK traveling? What precautions would you take, what information would you memorize?

Are you seeing an increase in RFE/denial rates for EB2-NIW? What advice would you have if you get an RFE? This is for an AI researcher at one of the 3 foundation model companies.

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Hi

Hallo Peter! Thanks for putting yourself out here.

You gotta look up another immigration attorney in the Valley, Rajat Kuver. He's a super cool guy and has for years done work on complex commercial and family immigration cases.

Good luck to all your endeavors and happy weekend.

Hey Peter,

On average, min and max - how many H1Bs do a Seed/Series A,B startups have?

From your experience.

Thank you for your time, Naren