I'm supposed to put out a job advertisement (but the job isn't real) for my employer. If an applicant passes the interview process, I don't have to hire that person (I probably can't - I don't have budget or permission from the organization). But I do have to honestly say if they have all the required skills -- I'm not permitted to say "wouldn't be a culture fit."

Nor do I have to fire my employee. But maybe my employee won't get a green card six years down the road.

1) Do I have any details wrong here? The one time I talked to a law firm about this they more-or-less refused to state the above outright, but answered all questions in this direction. 2) Doesn't this seem disrespectful to, among others, the applicants to the fake job?

The "or" part in the last sentence is worth noting. At the place I've worked, the employer invokes the second clause (i.e. PERM process is canceled/suspended, and they try again 6-12 months later).

The way it worked there was: Employer publishes an open req. We get lots of resumes. Manager calls the few people who may be a match. Then the manager has to justify why the person doesn't have the skills and the process continues.

Sometimes (and this is likely a bit random), the government does an audit, where they get the details of all who applied. Then they call the manager and start grilling him on why a particular candidate was rejected. If the manager can convince them, the PERM process continues. If not, they fail the Department of Labor Certification and the PERM process is canceled.

The person doesn't lose his job. They're just ineligible and need to apply again after a certain window.

I do know folks applying for PERM who were rejected twice because of this. The insane thing was that their roles (EE with specific specialty) were legitimately hard to fill, whereas other people in the team doing trivial scripting easily got through PERM.

The process is messed up in many ways.

Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfuscated or artificial barriers are put up purposefully to disqualify candidates.

I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years.

This is a very SW mindset, and makes no sense in other circumstances.

If my company canceled a large SW project, and laid off a lot of SW folks, why should that prevent them from sponsoring someone to work on nanoelectronics?

Because companies should be held accountable when they make mistakes in hiring. The employees shouldn’t have to bear the burden of their employers mistakes.

If you need to hide your job postings on an internal physical caulk board in a basement and post them in only physical copies of The Columbus Dispatch then it should be pretty clear you're not following the spirit of the program. If, even after doing that, you then disqualify candidates for pretty fake reasons and you somehow still have qualified candidates so you pull the position and try again in 6-12 months then you should absolutely fail a USCIS audit and you should lose your privileges for hiring foreign workers and sponsoring people for residency, at least for a time.

Legitimate employers and jobs can't get a visa in the H1B lottery because of widespread visa abuse. People from certain countries (particularly India) have to wait 10-15+ years because of abuse of the system. Fake employers with H1B schemes, bodyshops that really pay below prevailing wage and can keep Indian-born people as effectively indentured servants, spamming the system with H1B applications because they don't really care how many they get.

We're in permanent layoff culture now where pretty much every sufficiently-sized employer will probably fire 5-10% of their staff every year while still hiring people. This is to suppress wages and make people do more work for free. There should be a cost to this.

If you're an immigrant, a completely arbitrary layoff can be devastating. You have a short period to find a new job and if you don't, you have to leave the country. Employers who will do that to immigrants shouldn't be alloweed to hire immigrants.

You can be both pro-immigration and anti-immigration abuse.

Well, the abuse is mostly happening for the benefit of people from India.

But yes, it sucks that the "good" people from India have to wait a long time because of the system being abused to get the "not-so-good" Indians.

Keep in mind, though, that you're conflating H1-B with PERM. There isn't a 10-15 year wait for H1-B.

If the customers for these bodyshops could save money by outsourcing directly to India, they would've already.

And beyond those big bodyshops you have any number of smaller H1B fraud schemes eg [1][2][3][4].

If you're Indian-born and are waiting 10-15+ years for your green card then you should be mad about these companies because they're making your life more difficult.

> The US government is optimizing for being able to do some volume of technical work, and the the h1 is intended to make sure that the industry isnt limited by labour availability

First, I disagree with this claim. The US government is optimizing to suppress wages.

Second, when there's significant unemployment in the sector then there is by definition availability. It further goes to my argument that the main purpose is to suppress wages.

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/pr/east-bay-men-plead-guil...

[2]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/h-1b-visa-fraud...

[3]: https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/executives-staffing-compa...

[4]: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/sunnyvale-man-to-serve-1...

Humans aren't fungible.

> given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen

are crazy deluded about the quality of the average US citizen software engineering job applicant vs the quality of the person doing that job. Or you haven't ever actually done hiring for a big tech company (who use most of the H1B and perm processes).

I'm not saying Americans are dumb. But the average CS graduate from an average or low tier college in the US (of which there are many many many) is not as good of a hire as the average int'l MSCS degree holder. There's obvious statistical reasons for this: namely the int'l is likely richer in his/her country than the average US citizen is here bc that person can afford to pay for a degree here and move here and get in here.

But this perspective treats these jobs as if they are factory jobs that as long as the position is filled, money can be made and that's not true in software engineering. The quality matters and it's one of many things the PERM process wasn't built to handle and which also many people don't understand who haven't done this hiring process

Since they are clearly violating the law, how can I report this?

Here's a problem I often see when technical people, particular engineers, try to analyze legal issues: they tend to look for technical compliance (or noncompliance) or use standards like absolute proof but the law simply doesn't work that way.

Legal decisions tend to come down to things like witness credibility, a holistic view of the facts and whatever evidence standard is being used (eg preponderence of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, clear and convincing evidence).

An example I like to use is back when prosecutions for downloading something illegal were more in the news. A technical person might argue "an IP address doens't mean anything. It could've been anybody". But the law will look at the totality of the evidence (eg browser history, time when it happened, were you home at the time, whether such media was found on your PC, etc. And the way the Rules of Evidence work, you might not even be able to suggest certain alternative theories (eg "my Wifi was hacked") without evidence.

Another good example is sponsoring someone for a marriage-based green card. You need to be in a bona fide marriage and you'll get people who will look for technical compliance. Is having a joint bank account enough? Photos? A joint lease? Filing a joint tax return? Those are some of the factors USCIS uses but no single factor is sufficient. USCIS will look at the totality of the evidence in determining if a marriage is bona fide.

so back to PERM abuse, arguments like "we made an error with the email address" or "we accidentally lost some US citizen applications" or even "we complied with the technical requirements for advertising a position" may not carry the day because the totality of the evidence may still amount to immigration fraud.

Lastly, it should be noted that a lack of a prosecution (yet?) is not proof of legality or compliance either.

[1]: https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/28/cloudera_doj_employme...

[2]: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-labor-depart...

[3]: https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/employee-rights-labour-r...

Prosecution or lack of prosecution in this area are both political. The previous DOJ also sued SpaceX for not hiring asylees. I am not aware of an actual court victory. These tend to settle out of court and both sides get to claim victory and make headlines.

>they tend to look for technical compliance

I'm taking a more holistic view here, which is that the whole thing is so farcical that enforcing compliance here does more harm than good. Look at the operation that chained Hyundai workers and deported them for a photo op. What did it achieve? It created a diplomatic incident, the battery plant stopped producing batteries, and the state lost tax revenue.

>Those are some of the factors USCIS uses but no single factor is sufficient.

That's a whole different can of worms. There is endless litigation over things that USCIS does in its infinite wisdom. Fortunately, we have the APA and Loper Bright overturned Chevron, so it should restore some sanity to it.

Aside: >prosecutions for downloading something

There is no real prosecution for downloading. It's only uploading. The technical definition is the same as the legal one. The way DMCA prosecution works is that if you are in a torrent swarm and are uploading, you are distributing content, which is easier to prove under copyright law.

Related, iirc H1-B has a 6-year limit. Under the current policy what's the path forward if the holder is not ready to adjust their status to PR within the timeframe or not qualified to EB category? O1? But there were a wave of news stories about O1 being abused and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a prelude to major changes to the category.

Just curious. Thanks for making this thread.

It's possible to extend H-1B status beyond the 6-year max-out period if the beneficiary is in the green card process. But if the beneficiary isn't in the green card process, then the most common option is the O-1 and while it's getting harder to get an O-1, it's still within reach of many talented professionals and founders.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72095497/chamber-of-com...

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71541425/global-nurse-f...

What's an ask you'd make to startups in the legal AI space?

Not selling something, but have heard primarily negative sentiments from other lawyers due to hallucination risk.

There's also the L1B Company transfer, if you work for a company with offices in the US and they would be able to transfer you after a year. Bit of a gamble to find a company that would be willing to do this though, and you gotta work for probably years to find out.

H-1B, if you're not already in the US has a 100k fee attached to it. Though AFAIK that was a proclamation that expires at some point, but probably won't. So it's really not an option for 99% of people.

I'm not a lawyer, so definitely verify what i say, but i'm pretty sure these are also valid options.

Thank you.

[0]: https://www.usimmigrationadvisor.com/active-e-2-treaty-count...

Also: Try the green card lottery. You can Google to find info.

- How difficult has it become to get O1 for founders compared to say 5 years ago?

-What advice would you have for founders who think they should be able to get O1 once they have a bit of seed money (say YC, 500k) and press coverage?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA3qrg2Kpbo

Any thoughts there?

If those students are actually concerned about staying in status, simply saying they're volunteering might not be sufficient.

I'm a postdoc at a US university. My school's international office suggested there was no limit on how long I could travel outside of the US, but most sources online suggest there is a limit of 30 days before the SEVIS record goes inactive. It seems this can be avoided if the university sponsor records the travel in SEVIS. I think I've finally convinced them that this is a real limitation, but some actual expert knowledge would still be very appreciated! I am Canadian, in case that affects the answer.

Thanks for doing this!

So technically possible but also a tall ask (I didn’t know at the time of asking and my PI went with it).

I then came back and carried on without any immigration issues.

I have been living and working Estonia for around 2 years now, I have mostly US clients for a saas that I direct, this saas brings me around steady income of around 200k euros per year, at least 130k come from east coast companies.

Can I apply for the E1 treaty trader visa? Even if my company is not incorporated in Greece?

If the Dates for Filing (DFF) chart reaches my priority date, what is the latest viable timeline to return to my previous employer to file an I-485 based on their approved petition? Additionally, are there legal risks to joining after the date has already become current?

I am considering a concurrently filed EB-5 petition and am curious as to what you are noticing of late.

Thank you for doing this AMA, Peter!

Now, my us citizen spouse and I are filing a spouse based green card application. (of course, we also filed for EA and AP)

Anything you can tell us about how long it might take, how many requests for extra documents they might ask for? (I understand you haven't seen our application, to our minds it's very thorough, like 400 pages, but yeah, in all generality)

Thank you Peter!

I had to wait 2 years for my uncomplicated GC case.

A random lawyer web site that looks like a good explanation: https://peterchu.com/blogs/medium-feed/can-an-e-3-visa-holde...

Our re-entry permits are coming up for renewal soon. We're considering giving up my wife's and kids' green cards, and keeping only mine. The reason for keeping mine is twofold: (1) most of my assets are in the US, and I want to take my time shifting to non-US-domiciled assets to avoid the non-resident estate tax; and (2) I still travel frequently to the US -- 3 or 4 times a year -- for work.

Do you foresee any problems with my family giving up their green cards now, and me holding on to it?

That having said, not everyone spends 6 months to maintain their card and without a reasonable need to do so, it risks losing the status.

My partner is a H1B tech worker employed by Meta; not working on AI/ML.

Given the Chinese government opposition to the Manus acquisition, is there any risk they could encounter for their upcoming H1B visa stamp in China?

Is the common route something like BigLaw (possibly New York) first, then transitioning in-house later, or are there better alternatives?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46164104

1) constant layoffs which each time pause PERM authorization

2) some (but not all) major tech companies having to settle with the DoL or other similar entity about how they were making applications public for the labor market test. These settlements did not happen during this admin. And the higher exposure to average job seekers means defending the PERM is harder (partly bc you cannot claim that your employee is a higher quality employee, only that the on paper requirements like a degree and knowledge of various things, is met or not met)

PERM isn't meant to be an automatic process. I get that the employee wants permanent status but the employer can't have it both ways. You can't constantly need to be doing layoffs AND be unable to fill what is probably a pretty generic position (like "software engineer").

You obviously have a front-row seat to how current US immigration policy is impacting tech and so would love to see some high level stats showing the actual change.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

And another question: has 100k$ requirement on H1Bs make any meaningful impact on applications count (e. g. to remove the lottery)?

Since then, he has guided me and many friends through complex immigration processes, always flawlessly and on time. I’d strongly recommend listening to his advice and considering his services.

What travel restrictions are applied to applicants/spouses going through the PERM labor cert green card process? I am on an L1-B (wife is L2) and we are currently at the step before the I-485 submission and travel lots to see family

    > There have been plenty of horror stories about people who were accused of plotting to work in the US from their laptop on false pretence of being on vacation.

Google Translate: https://www-tagesanzeiger-ch.translate.goog/deportationen-un...

1. STEM OPT + self-employment: I've seen the E-Verify employer requirement, but conflicting takes on whether a solo founder's own LLC enrolling in E-Verify and W-2'ing the owner is acceptable to USCIS in practice. Is this a viable path, or has USCIS effectively foreclosed it?

2. The structural conflict: a single-member LLC is a disregarded entity (IRS doesn't allow owner W-2). But STEM OPT effectively requires W-2. Should solo founders convert to S-Corp or C-Corp before STEM OPT? When in the timeline?

3. SEVP Portal reporting for self-employed: what do you actually put for "Employer Name" — the LLC, or your own name? Any common mistakes here that trigger DSO/USCIS scrutiny?

4. The "20 hours/week" and "directly related to major" bars for solo founders pre-revenue: how does USCIS actually evaluate product-building time vs. business-side time during audits? Any compliance pitfalls you've seen?

5. International travel during OPT for self-employed: the "employer letter" requirement when self-employed — do you write it to yourself? Any real re-entry risks for solo founders, especially F-1 visa renewal abroad?

6. Pre-OPT business activity: I formed the LLC and have been doing product development before OPT starts (no revenue). Where's the line between permissible "preparation" vs. unauthorized employment for F-1?

7. Long-term path post-OPT for a solo technical founder (early-stage, no funding/revenue yet): realistic timelines and success rates for O-1A vs. EB-2 NIW (Matter of Dhanasar) vs. cap-subject H-1B? When should I start building the case?

Even partial answers on any of these would be hugely helpful. Thank you!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-mandates-e...

To be clear, we were completely honest on every form required to do this and my wife isn't part of any political groups and doesn't do much interesting stuff in that regard, so I don't think they would have much room to strip her citizenship.

On the off chance that this abduction happens from ICE, what is the best thing for us to do? Just call a lawyer?

As I said, I'm not that worried; the only concern I have is that we are traveling internationally at the end of the year and while I have no doubt that they are outlier cases, I have heard of a lot of scary stuff happening during customs upon reentry.

Anyway, thanks for the advice!

If someone is a a EU citizen and wanted to work in aerospace in the US, would that be possible in general?

What kind of visa or green card would they need?

Would they be able to work on everything like a US citizen or are there areas that are restricted?

I know there are some recent changes with OBBBA that will kick in Jan 2027 but as per my understanding only affect PTCs not ACA eligibility.

We're thinking to move back to the US at some point, so having a green card would be the royal road.

Thanks!

https://web.archive.org/web/20240516075853/https://www.sss.g...

Seems to suggest that F-1 student, H-1B temporary worker, visitor do not have to register. Is that correct?

There does not seem to be much information about this besides very vague statements.

Anecdotes would suggest that a lot of people were able to get these visas because there was some fairly loose interpretation of the criteria.

I'm particularly interested in EB1A.

For context, am postdoc and I was told by a local immigration firm, within the last year, that I had a good profile for EB1A.

The immigration rules for decades try detecting that transition for that purpose, as i recall. might want to look into that in case you're seriously thinking of such as a strategy.

Around 2014-2020 I feel like there were lots of companies hiring worldwide online remote.

In the last couple years it seems like the tides moved way back out, and companies are terrified of hiring remote contractors. My impression is that it seems mostly about misclassification risks, but maybe there's another part I haven't seen.

1. Is this a real risk? I've looked it up in a few areas but AFAICT misclassification is strictly about same country relations. I know there's some edge cases (like if a foreign worker isn't actually residing outside the country...) but IIUC the laws are mostly to protect the employees and government from bad companies, so as long as the company doesn't try to do that it's not an issue. The bindings of international contracts are limited and both sides know about that.

2. Is this a real trend? Do you have any idea where it comes from? My gut feeling is that Remote.io and Deel who are in this business are spreading FUD because they're in the business of selling protection. I've heard of multiple companies rejecting candidates with like "Oh Deel doesn't have a contract for your country so we can't hire you" etc. But maybe there was some big case that put everyone on their toes?

But domiciling them in your own country implies something else entirely, and it involves social considerations far beyond the capricious nature the contract you've offered them.

In which case, those social and civic considerations become paramount.

Yeah, but issues of culture and identity are extremely important, so important that it's farcical to exclude them when evaluating to what degree the US benefits from immigrants or deciding what immigration policy ought to be.

> Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.

I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants who work for tech companies basically characterizes the demographic trajectory of my hometown.

It only really becomes an uncomfortable issue around 'large scale undocumented migration' - but that's a whole other separate concern, it's not within the bounds of the law, and it's not related to tech at all.

If we remove that from the equation there is only a very, very narrow scope of 'Settler Nationalists' who could claim there's an issue if 'identity' - I'm being polite by allowing an escape valve there. Rates of regular immigration to the US are 'relatively' low on the aggregate.

But more crucially - the 'identity' issue is irrelevant at least from an economic perspective.

"I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants" - yes, this is a reasonable and fair concern, but, on the aggregate it's 'next to nothing'.

So - yes, immigration will be felt acutely by some for sure - and that's unfair and it's a moral dilemma - but on the aggregate - 'High Tech Migrants' have zero effect on the landscape of US overall. It's a small cohort.

If we want to talk 'ludicrous' - it's this ridiculously ignorant idea that somehow tech is an American phenom - it's not. It's international.

Bay Area + Tech is nothing without immigrants.

Would not exist a hugely notable tech hub.

Immigrants are a critical ingredient in everything important from founders to capital, to research, to 'filling out the ranks'.

It's not just jobs - it's entire classes of 'essential ingredients' without which - the recipe cannot work.

And without that level of inernationalism, there is no >2/3 revenues from outside US either. It's a slightly separate, but related issue.

Without immigrants the Bay would be about like the 'Research Triangle' in N Carolina, not an gigantic powerhouse.

That's on the locals. They are being priced out because they don't want to build any housing (NIMBYism) nor do they want to pay taxes on property (Prop 13). Don't blame immigrants for the policy failures of the bay area. These failures extend to all of CA and predate tech immigrants.

Edit: Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait generally? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly, and we've already asked you more than once not to.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

It's a very genuine question for how an attorney deals with these businesses? There are countless examples of startups breaking the law at mass scale (Uber, etc) and getting away with it. Sorry that asking difficult questions is wasting "community space". Your own profile cites conflict as essential, is asking difficult questions not part of that?

Part of the guidelines you asked me to review is "Assume good faith." Did you assume good faith from my comment?

One of the more recent discussions here was about Medvi, which described many illegal/unethical business practices. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/technology/ai-billion-dol...

Other examples include Airbnb building a bot poaching listings from Craigslist, Stripe not developing appropriate internal rules to enable fraud and drug transactions, pretty much all crypto exchanges and KYC, etc.

Obviously, payment processors like Stripe do not spring into existence fully formed with mature controls. My question relates partially to how attorneys in this domain handle the risks associated with undeveloped compliance, compliance failures, as well as business models that are diametrically opposing the law.

There is an area that many startups believe is "grey" where they operate outside of legal norms, whether it's to enable growth, lack of appropriate risk controls, etc.

Here, startups may knowingly, or unknowingly break the law related to immigration in order to further their business. That's what my question relates to.