I have a client who want to hire a candidate of mine. They've made him an offer, and he's accepted. The candidate is a Canadian citizen, and the position would be here in Houston. The candidate spoke to the Permanent resident Visa advisor at my client the other day before this person left on vacation. The way it was explained to him, is they are in the process of working with an immigration lawyer to file an H1B visa application on his behalf by the end of this month. The application is due by April 1st. Then they will have to wait until the end of May or early June to find out if he was selected or not in the H1B lottery. They told him there's a 30% chance to be selected. If he is selected he would have to wait until Oct 1st for the Visa to be issued. If it is, great, and we move forward. If not, the candidate says it's really easy for him to get a TN1 visa, which would allow him to come to the states for 3 yrs. By doing this he could start sometime this summer. During this time the company would continue down the path to get him a H1B visa so he could be here permanently. He would have the ability to renew this TN1 visa for another 3 yrs if he wasn't selected for the H1B during this time period. They could repeat this process until he's eventually selected. This is my candidates understanding of how this process works. I want to follow up with my clients Permanent resident Visa advisor as well as I've never had a situation like this. However as I said this person is on vacation, and won't be back until late next week. Anyone able to offer some insight on this? Is this indeed how things would play out (visa process--both H1B & TN1)? If so I don't see any complications with this. If not what is the process, and where might there be complications that could possibly keep this from happening? Any advice would be appreciated.
You're a recruiter and the immigration lawyer isn't on your consulting team, he/she is staffed by the company where the project is being completed? It's a major company I assume?
This is why people are really pissed off right now. There's no American that qualifies for this job???
This is one of the largest companies in the world. They don't have an internal candidate who can do this specific job, and they had the job posted for over a year and weren't able to find one qualified candidate. So if you want to be pissed off then have at it.
There's quite a few people I know who have applied for TN then transferred to H1-B--the TN filing fee is only $50, there is no lottery cap, and while it is a tinier bit stricter than the H1-B when it comes to admittance criterion, anyone who fits the H1-B categories has a good chance of fitting onto the TN ones. In practice, Customs can deny you TN renewals but it doesn't happen often. I'm not an immigration lawyer but I was coached by a legal team when I went through the process (Canadian citizen on a work visa) and that is my understanding from it. Ping me if any specific questions.
H1B's and GC's are important because there's a legitimate talent gap in IT in the US. There are more jobs to fill than there are skilled laborers. It's something that impacts the IT field yet I rarely if ever hear anyone in that field complain about H1Bs/GC workers. The people that b**** about it seem to be the ones that aren't even affected by it.
