[harrel]

I had to apply for an EB5 visa, and since I was opening an office in non-TEA city, Austin, I have to put over 1 million + expenses for it. I'm still in the process of making enough to enter here and open a company, but its hard for people from India. India is not a treaty nation so tech-founders from here have an extremely hard time entering here to start a business.

[surferbayarea]

It's not that hard actually, there are many hacks possible with the current immigration system. I am a tech founder from India, been in US 10 years and funded by a top tier valley VC. My green card application has been in progress forever...So I simply created a LLC and transferred my H1 visa to that. Super low-cost solution, better/cheaper than getting a green card or E2 or any of these funky visas. And this isn't just a fluke, a number of people in a similar situation have applied this hack successfully....

[harrel]

For H1B there is a big waiting list in the first place. For h1b visa, there are legal complications if you try to hack the system in-terms of ownership of the company you created and so on, there gotto be a sponsor for you to get your h1b approved. In some cases penalty could be big enough to get you deported and ban you for X amount of years. I cannot afford that. There are some drawbacks on taxation side too.

I will not recommend to go that risky route if you're an entrepreneur.

I explored this option first and my lawyer told me to back off.

[healthenclave]

Good info!! Thanks

Do you have a blog / another way to reach you?

[surferbayarea]

[e-mail]

[healthenclave]

Yup bigger problem is getting the 100k investment in the first place. Most entrepreneur (even highly skilled ones) don't have that kind of luxury / investment to start-with (in developing countries).

Also on this list : http://travel.state.gov/visa/fees/fees_3726.html

Iran is repeated twice is think it's a typo. Iran in EB1 and India is EB5