I’m an Indonesian. I got my master’s degree from a Taiwanese university last year, and just started working for a Taiwanese company (IT-related) last month-ish (my very first formal job in Taiwan).
Two weeks ago the higher ups told me that that they’re planning to transfer me to their office in California (to a town called Brea. I google-mapped the place and it’s one~two hour away from Los Angeles by bus). I was a bit excited and wary at the same time. Kinda OOT, I’m gay, so my end goal is to get a PR, and ultimately a citizenship of a country where being gay is legal and protected by the law. To be honest, my end goal is Canadian citizenship; I’m (was?) planning to work in Taiwan for a couple of years, save up some money, get another degree in a Canadian university, get a working permit, work for a couple of years, get a PR, continue to work some more years, and then (finally!) get a Canadian citizenship. But this announcement threw me for a loop.
My worries are:
Is it possible to get an American PR (green card) through a work visa? How long do I have to work legally to get a green card? I heard that, aside from getting married to an American, green card is done through lottery.
If I was fired/quit, would I be able to get an extension visa to look for another job? In Taiwan, if you quit your job, you can get two 6 months extension visa to look for another job.
If I was fired/quit, would I be able to enter Taiwan again to look for a new job?
If I accepted this offer, my progress to get a Taiwanese visa will be lost/reset, correct?
The office I will be working in is located in a town ~two hours away from Los Angeles. I’m worried about the living & rent cost, and public transportation (for medical reasons, I can’t drive). My current salary is okay ish, (4xk NT ish) and I can live comfortably in Taipei with my current salary. According to Google & my own calculation, even if I doubled or tripled my current salary, I wouldn’t be able to save a lot due to the high cost of living in California.
Sorry for bad English! I’m not a native speaker & I’m typing all of this from my phone in my office’s toilet. What would you do if you were in my position?
I‘m rather biased, but I would recommend going to the EU - not because it’s necessarily better economically than Canada, but because of the Blue Card programme that is apparently not very hard to get (at least in Germany, which also has gay marriage).
But most importantly, all the best - everybody deserves to live in a place where their human rights are secure!
H1B is general work visa and there are quotas, L1 is intra company transfer. Chances are you will be going on L1. While work visa is dual intent (meaning you do not have to prove a lack of immigration intent) they are still nonimmigrant visa. That means you apply for a PR in addition to your L1 visa. Your company has to sponsor you for this, and it’s a toss up as to whether or not they will do it. It’s not automatic basically. And even H1B or L1 has limits of 6 years I believe, after which if they didn’t sponsor you for a PR you have to leave.
L1 visa is easier to get compared to H1B by the way
I think EU is better if you can go there… for one thing you wont have issues with medical treatment costing too much.
The US is gay friendly but the whole culture isn’t… too much toxic macho culture. But California in general is good for gays. San Francisco Bay Area is really good but if that’s where you are going make sure they pay you well. Cost of living is very high there.
Not being able to drive is a huge disability in the US. Especially suburban LA because there are little to no public transportation. If you live in LA proper then it is less of an issue but if you live in the outskirts it is assumed you will have your own car. San Francisco Bay Area is better in this regards and I was able to get around using BART/MUNI/Caltrain but I never attempted to get around without a car in LA.
Finally if you got a medical problem make sure you have good insurance with a big network… out of network cost will bankrupt you!!
If you can’t drive for medical reasons, I’d avoid southern California entirely. Even in Los Angeles proper, you’ll want a car nevermind being two hours away.
There’s only really two major areas where you can get by without a car in the US, and that’s San Francisco Bay Area (debatable), and New York as well as most (but not all) of major cities in New England (Boston and such).
You’d need about U$100,000 or more to afford California.
Living in a town 2 hours away, can you be any more specific?
Like 2 hours in Riverside area (east of LA)?
Unless your company promises in writing that they will support your work visa to turn into a greencard, then you are risking a lot here, from what you worry that you’ll be giving up (Taiwan visa through job).
Yea, you MUST have that, or else you’re stuck with the time limit a L1A/L1B visa provides, which isn’t very long at all. Companies will try to weasel themselves out of petitioning for a green card because it’s an additional expense. There is NO automatic green card for holding a work visa for certain years like Taiwan/ rest of the EU does.
Otherwise your only hope of a green card is marry someone, or stay there illegally with all the issues you can run into…
Yes sir I have. I need more work experience and/or get a high score on a French test. By the time I have achieved one of those two, they would’ve started cutting some points off me because I have passed the age limit.
I know Germany/EU’s great but the language barrier is there, and not that I mind learning another language, but this just means Canada’s just one less issue I need to overcome.
If they decided to sponsor me, does that mean I would have a green card right from the start? Sorry I don’t know how this works at all.
My office is in Brea. What do you think about that city?
Brea in Orange County. Much better. A bit more conservative, but you’ll survive.
Tons of Taiwanese in Orange County, but more towards Irvine, where 85 Coffee set up its first branch in the U.S.
You’ll still need a car, unless you are a home hermit who can stay around your neighborhood mostly.
Lots of fun things up there. Knots Berry Farm, Disneyland, baseball games.
You will wait a number of years, 3 or 4 years, before you do an adjustment of status and get your green card. The problem is adjustment of status isn’t shall issue, and that means they can deny you even if you have no disqualifying factors or whatever (criminal records or prior immigration violations for example). Whereas if you get processed by a consular officer overseas it’s shall issue, meaning they can’t deny you unless they find a disqualifying factor. Only then do you get a green card to start.
This is because even employment sponsored green card has quotas and so you still have to wait for it. It is by no means guaranteed either.
And you can only do consular processing if you are sponsored by a US citizen family or spouse…