
US visa woes? Pah. Try getting into Spain - abarrera
http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/column/2012/01/us-visa-woes-pah-try-getting-into-spain/
======
jasonkester
I spent a little over a year living in Spain, and the article is correct:
There is essentially no way as a non-EU citizen to get a visa to live in
Spain.

The good news, though, is that they simply don't care if you go live there
anyway.

Spain's immigration consciousness is focused entirely to the South.
Specifically, they're very interested in stopping the flow of Africans
crossing over from Morocco, so woe be to you if you've got dark skin and a
lost passport in Algeciras.

But if you're a white guy stepping off the ferry in Bilbao? Good luck finding
anybody to even look at your passport. I flew in and out a dozen times,
crossed back to England by boat a couple times, and even did a trip down to
Morocco along the way. The best I could get from Immigrations was a quick
flip-open-and-stamp of the passport, with an occasional pained expression from
having to find an empty page to stamp.

My girlfriend is English and I'm American. For the first 3 years we were
together neither one of us could stay in the others' country. Without Spain
and their lax standards, it would have been hard to find a place where we
could live together.

~~~
Vivtek
_My girlfriend is English and I'm American._

That is precisely why my (Hungarian) wife and I married after six weeks.
Twenty-two years ago. Sometimes it's OK to be impulsive.

------
gr366
+1 on the difficulty of getting in to Spain.

Prior to a year of living and working abroad, my wife and I hired a Spanish
immigration lawyer to provide us with visa options (as Americans we can
typically only remain in the European Schengen Zone for 90 out of every 180
days). I've got a web development company and all U.S.-based clients, so in
theory would have been bringing money into the Spanish economy. The lawyer
came back with 3 options for me:

    
    
      1. Be a student
      2. Retire (with proof of savings/income)
      3. Be independently wealthy (again with bank account proof)
    

So we lived in Madrid for our allotted 3 months and then moved on to Buenos
Aires, where the visa restrictions are a lot more lax and they have a year-
long visa option for foreign business owners had we decided we wanted to stay
there.

Anecdotally, the number of American expats in Madrid was minuscule to the
number we met in Buenos Aires, and the ones in Spain were there almost always
after having been sponsored by large companies.

~~~
molmalo
As a national of Argentina, I can say that the number of expats here is high,
because our National Constitution states that it is "to all men in the world
who wish to dwell on Argentine soil". And article 25 reads: "The Federal
Government will encourage European immigration, and it will not restrict,
limit or burden with any taxes the entrance into Argentine territory of
foreigners who come with the goal of working the land, improving the
industries and teach the sciences and the arts." (Further reading in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Argentina> )

This leads to an explicit invitation to come, to everyone who wishes to work
here. In the las 3 years, almost 45k people came to live here, from Spain
alone. (This article from El Mundo is from 2010, the number has increased
since then,
[http://www.elmundo.es/america/2010/11/30/argentina/129114534...](http://www.elmundo.es/america/2010/11/30/argentina/1291145340.html)).

And a nice incentive is that there is A LOT of demand here for developers. I
hope you enjoy your stay here! =)

------
krmmalik
I finished the StartupNation book by Dan Senor recently which cites the
economic miracle of Israel as the ultimate StartUp Nation, and in it, they
discuss the idea of immigration one of the major contributing factors to
Israel's success.

Its a very interesting read if anyone is interested and goes further along on
the theory that immigration is and can be very good for most countries
contrary to public opinion.

------
andyking
I've never heard of this publication before, but I've had a flick through and
I'm really impressed with it, and particularly impressed to see something of
this quality out of Britain. It makes a change to read content like this from
a European perspective that isn't from the same old few names that pop up
everywhere. Good luck to them.

~~~
buro9
It's very new, it's a venture from Milo as I understand it. Launched before
Christmas, so still finding it's identity and getting a content archive
generated.

I only knew of it from Milo ( <https://twitter.com/#!/Nero> ) who contributes
to Blottr or has some connection that way ( <http://www.blottr.com/> ).

If we're into new news sources, I'd recommend Blottr too. Varying quality
because it is user-generated, but so far it has been pretty good. Proves to be
exceptional on local news stories where they're well represented (London for
example, covering stories that local news coverage skips in favour of
metropolis level stories).

------
kokey
I don't think the story is that different for the UK, the main points: The UK
now has monthly quotas, which makes it impossible for business to sponsor
visas some months. Companies have to become licensed sponsors first, which
makes it hard for a small, new company to start sponsoring. They're limiting
the number of certificates a licensed company can sponsor at the moment. This
is not mentioned as part of the official caps, it's something they could
silently do to limit immigration severely. In fact these are so effective that
the quota limits are rarely reached, allowing the government to claim that the
quota is not too low.

With all the challenges above, it's still possible to get visas sponsored in
the UK, but you have to be clever about it. I suspect the same is true in
Spain. I have been told the same is true for the USA.

You have to use the right immigration lawyer, one that large companies use and
that have optimised their process with getting visas, and adapt that process
weekly to deal with changing attitudes from the authorities and has a good
ongoing working relationship with the authorities. You have to start talking
to them early on, to get an idea how to time these things to increase the
chances of it working out. Also be willing to fork out the extra $1000-$2000
or so instead of trying it on your own.

------
pinaceae
age old bureaucracy, coupled with a very hierarchical mindset (the spanish
monarchy protocol was famous for its complexity) - what do you expect?

as david landes notes in his quite brilliant book, The Wealth and Poverty of
Nations, exactly this mindset ruined Spain, Latin and South America. While the
USA took off like a rocket.

if you think that modern times have no relation to the past come visit spain
and try to get internet installed in your flat. colleagues in barcelona fought
for 12 months...

~~~
motxilo
"if you think that modern times have no relation to the past come visit spain
and try to get internet installed in your flat. colleagues in barcelona fought
for 12 months..."

Really? If we tend to generalize out of just one example, then yes, getting
internet installed in Spain is a PITA. Now, I will give you "my" example: my
(stateside) boss just arrived a couple of months ago here to Barcelona and he
did not have any sort of problem with his connection setup. Hence, by the same
only-on-example-generalization-syndrome we may conclude that getting internet
installed in Spain is painless.

Not to mention the misleading correlation between having your internet set up
in a country and its developmental status.

Cheers

------
tluyben2
Spain has horrible bureaucracy, really not of this time and they have it for
practically anything. I love the country but this stuff ruins it on many
levels (visa is a big thing if you want one, but this goes everywhere; from
getting land in your name to making Endesa (electricity) fix something broken
in your house to changing or canceling contracts; you have to put everything
in writing, with your social security number, nothing is easy, nothing...).

------
dillona
How does the process compare in Germany?

~~~
galadriel
As a intern, my visa was quite straight forward which involved going to German
embassy and getting the visa 2 days later. The trickiest part of getting work
visa in Germany is to get a ZAV, but that is waived if you are a guest
scientist, which also includes students of science coming for research.

I have no idea about Spain, but going to Portugal for similar reason was PITA.

------
alourenco
The article doesn't at all compare the process of immigration between the US
and Spain like its title implies. The US has many advantages over Spain in
attracting talent, but immigration is not one of them.

My background: I immigrated to Barcelona from the US to work for the Spanish
office of the same company for which I worked in the US after graduating from
college in the east coast. I am from South America. I cannot comment on the
challenges of hiring in either location, but I am familiar with the
immigration process as an employee. I had a poor experience with US
immigration, and a positive one with the Spanish process.

The process for applying for a work visa is similar in each country (this is
oversimplified): submit your documents and await the decision. For my Spanish
work visa, this took about three months. In the US the time between H1B visa
application and when you actually begin working depends on the demand for the
visa and when you apply; workers who apply before October will start working
in October. If demand is high, you may have to apply as early as April.
Painting applying for a work visa in Spain as a protracted game of trial and
error is disingenuous: hire competent legal help who is familiar with the
immigration process for the country or you're going to be running around in
circles.

Once you have a resident permit in Spain, you are allowed to live here for the
validity of that permit, even if you lose your job. Resident permits are valid
for 1 year, 2 years (1st renewal), or 5 years (2nd renewal). If you are in the
US under a H1B visa you must leave the country within 10 days unless you find
another job. This US requirement makes life as an immigrant more stressful and
leads you to stick with an employer for longer than you might wish.

Eligibility to stay in Spain permanently via acquiring Spanish citizenship is
dependent upon the time you've resided here: 2 years for citizens of certain
South American countries and 10 years for others (there are two other more
specific categories). In the US you need 5 years as a permanent resident, plus
the time necessary to get to that point (e.g. +6 months applying for work
visa, +1 year working as an H1B until your company is willing to sponsor you,
+1 year applying for the greencard). In my personal case, costs for the
Spanish citizenship process have been under 500 EUR, while in the US it can
easily cost more than $1000.

On the topic of Spain not caring if you go to live there: be careful about
violating the immigration rules of a Schengen area country, and weigh the
benefits of doing so vs the potential punishment (banned for some time? I'm
not sure).

The header image of this article is much closer to the treatment of highly
skilled immigrants in the US than it is in Spain. While bureaucratic, the
government in Spain treated me with humanity. In the US, it's par for the
course to be faced with gruff agents who seem to not want you there.

YMMV depending on the part of Spain or the US to which you're immigrating, the
competence of your immigration attorney, and your background.

Overall, despite its misleading premise, the article is right in that Spain
needs to improve the environment for highly skilled immigrants and startups.
However, Spain is hardly alone in that position.

