05 Feb Two Foreign Workers Receive B-1 Business Visas with the Help of Getson & Schatz
Our immigration attorneys recently helped a foreign multinational company specializing in energy efficient equipment successfully secure B-1 visas for two foreign workers to travel to the United States. Both workers were employed by different European based parent companies and needed to perform services to benefit our client. Each individual possessed their own set of issues that, if not for our Philadelphia immigration lawyers, could have made their availability to perform services in the United States for the benefit of the different European based parent companies delayed or not permitted at all.
First, our client retained us to help secure a B-1 Business Visa for a foreign worker whose services our client had contracted – technically, he was not our client’s direct employee. Further, this worker had spent a considerable amount of time in the United States in fulfilling his contracted services for our client through the Visa Waiver Program. However, after a difficult inspection with the United States Customs and Border Patrol and with important work left to be done, our client came to us to help this worker receive a B-1 Business Visa that would allow him to travel to the United States for business purposes without having to rely on the Visa Waiver Program. This task required our Philadelphia immigration lawyers to outline the past relationship between our client and this worker, including providing their consulting agreements describing the worker’s proposed activities that are permissible activities for B-1 Business Visa holders and how our client would compensate our foreign worker’s foreign employer for his services and that the United States subsidiary of our client would never compensate the foreign worker directly. Additionally, these agreements provided evidence that the foreign worker would be present in the United States to provide consultancy services on behalf of our client for a brief and temporary amount of time. In spite of this foreign worker’s previous difficult inspection at the port of entry, the United States consulate in his home country granted him a B-1 Business Visa.
Second, our Philadelphia immigration lawyers helped our client secure a six-month B-1 Business Visa for one of its high level employees to permit that employee to travel to the United States in order to help train and advise United States workers at our client’s United States subsidiary. Getson & Schatz decided to pursue a B-1 Business Visa for this employee instead of an L-1 Visa for a number of reasons, including that the foreign worker would always remain an employee of our foreign client – i.e. he would never be an employee of our client’s United States subsidiary, whereas an L-1 Visa would permit such direct United States-based employment; because the foreign worker only intended to remain in the United States for no more than six-months and not the many years an L-1 Visa permits its holder to remain in the United States; because the B-1 Business Visa can be available immediately, subject to the scheduling/availability of a consular interview, requires satisfaction of a much lower evidentiary standard, and is less costly compared to an L-1 Visa; and because our client’s employee had absolutely no present or future intention of abandoning his foreign residence, whereas an L-1 Visa holder may have no present intent to abandon their foreign residence while being open to immigration to the United States in the future (“dual intent”). Our Philadelphia immigration lawyers provided our client and its employee a letter to submit to the United States consulate explaining the employee’s eligibility for a B-1 Visa for six months, and the United States consulate granted our client’s employee a B-1 Business Visa that allowed him to travel to the United States for six months in order to train and advise our client’s United States subsidiary’s workers in furtherance of our client’s European based business.