I was recently offered a position in the US and I'm located in Canada. Does anyone have experience working in the US that is from another country (eg; canada)?
I'm going to have my own private health insurance.
Get an immigration lawyer to help me with the move.
What are somethings to consider that I might be missing?
The lawyer is probably a good idea. Although you can save some money by doing it yourself. Lawyers don´t have a special avenue to take you through - they just do the paperwork and advise you. They can´t help you get in any faster.
I advise going to the US immigration page and taking a long look. I just moved back here from Spain and brought my Spanish wife with me. We had to get her a visa and it was a long process.
Be aware that you have to do it in Canada, at least we had to do it in Spain. You cannot come here and get a visa from the embassy. You also have to go through a background FBI check for Homeland Security.
Now, you might not have to do everything that we did because the rules for different countries are different. But I would go to that immigration page and check to see if you can get in by just coming. There are rules about how many people can come in and different catagories as to who can come.
If you are a relative of a US citizen, for example, you get a #1 priority and there are no limits, so you are guaranteed a visa. If you are not a relative there will be a limit to the number of immigrants from that country each year and you might have to wait.
Your work might be able to warrant you to come but that is another issue and I can´t help you with that one.
BTW, if you come as a relative, that relative has to guarantee your support for a number of years and warrant that guarantee with an avadavit.
If I´m scaring you about the process, that´s good, because it´s very complicated these days.
You´d think it would be easy to get your wife in the country but from the time we applied for her visa and got it, it took about 4 months and cost several thousand dollars. Of course, the cost involved her flying to Madrid from Barcelona, etc., and I don´t know where you are in relation to the examining board there. But we had to pay a doctor to make a physical, take shots, and all that rot as well.
It might be easier from Canada but I doubt it...
Oh, and get prepared to do a lot of paperwork!! My advice is to study that web page and read everything on it that you can. Some of the info about getting the vise is VERY obscure and it took me a long time to get it all...and we made mistakes at first, until we got educated...
And if you are thinking about calling...well, let me just say that the people that answer the phone are not very good at what they do...if you find you aren´t getting the info, call back and get somebody else, there are a lot of them...
And there are a lot of people trying to get into the US. That´s why it takes so long, even if you have a top priority...
Enough, enough, yeah I know, I´ve written a lot - wait until you start reading the web page :cry: - I would be interested in following your progress...and GOOD LUCK to you!!!!!
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