

What's your chance of getting a U.S. work visa? Find out with BorderScore - jrichards27
http://score.teleborder.com/?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=social&utm_content=interviewing&utm_campaign=borderscore

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largote
For Software Engineers, citizens from these 4 countries can get work Visas
other than an H1-B:

    
    
      Canada
      Mexico
      Singapore
      Chile
    

The first two on the TN Visa, and the latter two on the H1-B1 Visa, the cap
has never been reached on either.

~~~
lazaroclapp
True, but keep in mind TN Visas are designed for temporary work. They need to
be renewed every 3 years, even for the same employer, and offer no path
towards permanent residence. So, they can be used for people doing a work
exchange for a company that has branches in Canada/Mexico and the U.S., or as
a bridge when the H1-B cap has been hit for the current/next year. They don't
really substitute an H1-B in the mid/long term.

~~~
WildUtah
"temporary work. They need to be renewed every 3 years, even for the same
employer, and offer no path towards permanent residence."

But TNs are renewable infinitely. You did need to call yourself a systems
analyst. Systems analyst was on the list of approved TN jobs but computer
programmer was excluded, even though they're the same thing. I believe
software engineer was recently added even though that is also the exact same
thing as a computer programmer or systems analyst. The Dept of Labor has a
dozen or more objectively indistinguishable words for programmer.

There is a route to permanent residence, of course. You can either just keep
renewing or you can marry an American. You probably can't afford to retire in
the Bay Area as a programmer anyway if your spouse isn't insisting so you
might as well return home when you're done working. Canada and Mexico are nice
places to go home to at the end of a career.

~~~
largote
Or you can switch to an H1-B and apply for a Green Card immediately after
getting it if you feel like becoming a permanent resident.

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jheriko
my personal chances seem to be about zero. at least without spending a lot of
time, money and effort.

when i last applied it rapidly descended into a process that felt like bribery
and moving goalposts.

that being said, i in no way blame america for making it hard for people of
arab descent who spent any serious amount of time immersed in that culture. i
would do the same. (i /assume/ that was the problem - i may well be wrong)

~~~
xeromal
That's too bad man. :(

~~~
aurelifornia
This is just so depressing.

~~~
jheriko
i am making assumptions, i could very well be wrong.

the form i had to fill out riddled with questions about arab descent made me
skeptical...

it might have been more to do with my past, having a minor criminal record as
a child or my loud and public controversial nature... or anything else that
they could determine from my UK passport number and other details i provided
when I initially applied for an ESTA (you don't normally need a visa as a UK
citizen).

~~~
petercooper
_(you don 't normally need a visa as a UK citizen)_

A criminal record means one would though (the US doesn't recognize "spent"
convictions) or even an _arrest_ for a crime involving "moral turpitude". The
rules are incredibly harsh.

~~~
jheriko
yes, although it does mention in the paperwork that minor offences as a child
do not normally stop a visa application. it is also abundantly clear that this
is a problem that prevents using the ESTA system to travel.

this is part of why i feel i should stress that i am making assumptions, and
not hide from any other issues that i may have there... there is a certain
amount of bitterness from having gone through the process and given up because
it took so long, required so much effort and cost too much money.

------
drglitch
How accurate is this information, ultimately? i.e:

\- Are lawyer fees counted in?

\- Different advertising expenses for having public ads up for position as per
requirement of H1B petition process?

\- Internal HR costs (which run large for larger corps)?

\- What's the ultimate revenue model?

~~~
tg3
\- Yes, legal fees are counted \- this includes government filing fees (you
may be referring to PERM advertising, which is part of the Green Card process)
\- no \- this is an experiment from the team at Teleborder.com, which is a
complete global mobility platform

------
bluerobotcat
I have a PhD in philosophy (with a dissertation on symbolic logic). When I was
interviewing in the US, I was told repeatedly that it would impossible for me
to get an H1B visa for an IT job because my degree is not in science or
engineering. BorderScore doesn't seem to take this sort of thing into account,
unless I'm missing something.

~~~
bluerobotcat
I got the following assessment:

    
    
        The short version is that you can start working in the U.S. within 6 weeks, and stay for at least 2 years with:
        - a 82% chance of success
        - $2,183.13/year cost to sponsor you
    

I suspect this is wrong.

Previously I was also told that the waiting period could easily be up to 9
months.

------
goyalankit
Is it safe? Do you store the data?

~~~
discordance
I would like a follow up on this as there is no privacy statement on your
site.

~~~
utunga
This might be relevant if people were asked to oAuth approve something to get
there report - but they only asked for my LinkedIn profile which means
anything they got from there is public info already.

Bit suprised by that to be honest.. if this goes viral they just lost the
opportunity to get a ton of oAuth Authorizations to LinkedIn which could have
been v useful to them down the line for further data scraping (I would
imagine).

The fact that they didn't suggests that they have their heads on the right
side of your privacy concerns.

------
pranade
Super helpful analysis, both from an employer perspective and for the employee
-- we need more transparency on this

------
nwenzel
This is actually helpful on the employer side too. Makes initial conversations
with potential hires easier because we both get a sense of whether it's worth
investing more time into something that may not even be a possibility.

------
haosdent
I am a Chinese. My linkedin
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/haosdent](https://www.linkedin.com/in/haosdent) .
But it seems hard to get a H1B visa at this time....

------
nsnick
Why does this take 24 hours?

~~~
mattmanser
I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess it's an MVP where they manually
assess your skills.

Also, this is a YC company and it looks like this is a pivot or alternatively
they're trying to find more candidates for clients, who then pay them a fee to
sort out the visa?

~~~
jrichards27
That's somewhat correct, although we have a bunch of stuff on the back-end
that we're not quite ready to talk about yet :)

Not a pivot, just an experiment to see how people respond. Give it a whirl and
let us/me know!

~~~
theGREENsuit
More than happy to give it a whirl. Can you elaborate on what you do with the
data that's given? Do you store it permanently, how long do you keep it, who
else gets to have it?

~~~
chralieboy
They use it to generate leads for products, store it indefinitely, and will
ask permission before sharing it.

------
yousifa
Hopefully more people find out about this to bring in more talent

~~~
Dewie
Maybe if a lot of _talent_ moves from where I am to the US, I can negotiate
higher prices where I already am. Sounds like a plan. :)

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christyho
This is, simply, awesome!

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wahsd
Or, in other words, how much will you deprive your own society of and
contribute to American society, assuring our domination and your society's
dependence and subjugation.

~~~
throwaway344
Human beings are not property of their governments. They have a right to live,
and move to a place that they choose. Brain drain might be a problem, but the
correct approach is to make the drained country a better place to live, not to
prohibit escape.

~~~
wahsd
I didn't say government, I said society.

It's sad that people don't realize that or value the contributions they could
make to their societies, to lift their cultures and countries, instead of
compounding ever more advantages. It's brain drain. It's rather supremacist in
nature too and not unlike colonialism.

