Options to move in the US.

[vincent]

Hi everyone,
I'm new on this forum. I have just read a few threads and i thought i could get some help.
I'm a french citizen and my wife is Philippino. We are leaving in France and we want to move in the US so we are looking at options for at least one of us get a working visa before moving. It sounds easier for me. I'm working for an american company in France. So L1 visa should be easy to get as an employee transfer. Unfortunately since a year now that i'm asking my management to move there i can't get a job there due to cost reduction.
I have been looking at an other position, but i have not been successful. It seems that a H1 visa is very hard to get and it is always what the employer who interviewed me said (beside the fact i may not be the right person for the job!). So is H1 the only work permit i can get? Is any other way to get a sponsor? I'm apllying every year to the US lottery but not sucessful so far...
My wife has been graduated in the US. We left the US for France just after her graduation (i was expat there with a L1 at that time; shouldn't have come back!), so she never worked there. I have read that being graduated in the US automatically grant a one year work permit without sponsorship. Can anyone confirm this? Now as she never work, would it be possible for her to take advantage of this opportunity now.
It could be possible for her to find a sponsor if we go in the middle of nowhere. But once we are there i will have to find a sponsor too which will be hard! Does anyone know how it works if i choose to be self-employee? Is it an option to get a visa?
A lot of question here, but i'm a bit desesperate because i have spent a lot of time this year to look for a job in the US but work permit loks not possible so i'm lokking for some help or advice for a last chance else i will have to wait my company is doing better to get a L1 transfer!
Thanks everyone who can help here.

[Bevdeforges]

Bonsoir Vincent,
Your situation is not an easy one. Keep trying the lottery in any event.

Your wife may have been entitled to work for a year immediately after her graduation, but you can't go back now and claim a work permit. (Even if you could, it's very doubtful you could get any sort of dependent visa to join her, given that she was on a student visa to begin with.)

Unfortunately, with the current climate regarding immigrants (not only in the US), it is getting harder and harder to get work sponsorship or any form of immigrant status unless you have some job skill that is in very short supply in your target country.

As far as getting transfered by your current employer, many companies consider overseas transfers to be "earned rewards" that they tend to reserve for long-time employees, mostly upper level managers.

It could be worthwhile to try and get involved with any sort of project at work that involves working with the Americans. That could get you a few business trips over to the US, which increases your visibility with the American offices. Let them know of your interest in transferring and maybe they can find a "need" for you somewhere - even if only on a temporary basis (6 months or a year). Once you have overseas working experience, the matter of finding a job (and a sponsor) becomes much easier because "overseas experience" is definitely a marketable job skill. (That's more or less how I got from the US to Europe some 15 years ago.)

The other "gotcha" is that most visas with working privileges won't allow the "trailing spouse" to work. There is a move on in the US to grant work permits to spouses coming from countries that allow American trailing spouses to work, but France isn't even a candidate that I'm aware of at the moment.

Unless you can land Green Cards, the one with the job will get a visa allowing them to work for that employer only, and the trailing spouse will be, well, a trailing spouse with no working privileges.

Have you thought about looking for work in the UK, then trying to go from there to the US in a few years? It's a fast and dirty way to get the "international experience" and to demonstrate that you can handle living in a "foreign" country with a different language and all. Only problem is that you may lose out on your eligibility for the lottery. Not sure if they go by nationality or country of residence.

Anyhow, a few ideas for you. (Just for the record, I had major problems when I first came to France - was sans papiers for nearly 2 years after I was married to a Frenchman. Now I have French nationality - so anything is possible!)

[synthia]

Another problem with work permits is that, as far as I have been able to determine, they don't carry over to your spouse. So if one of you gets a work visa, the other still won't be able to work legally.

[vincent]

Thank you all for your feedback. Well it seems difficult. We know that only the one of us who will get a sponsor will be able to work. But it will be more confortable to do the move once we are sure that one will get a job and we hope that once there it will be relatively "easy" for the other one to find a sponsor even if it takes some time, that is ok! Don't have much choice anyway.
I'm not too much excited with the option to move to UK first. I actually had an opportunity to move to Canada with the hope to have a L1 after a year or 2, but it's a bit complicated. I rather stay with my company and just be patient to find the right opportunity and increase my visibility in the US office as you said. And the advantage of a L1 is that my spouse can work with a L2! Just need to be patient i guess.