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As usual, there are countless immigration topics and I'll be guided by whatever you're concerned with. Please remember that I can't provide legal advice on specific cases for obvious liability reasons because I won't have access to all the facts. Please stick to a factual discussion in your questions and comments and I'll do the same in my answers!
Previous threads we've done: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=proberts.
Is there really nothing native citizens like me can do to get our family here outside waiting in a generic line with everyone else in the world?
But I assume nobody actually purposefully presses the button; only sometimes doing so by accident.
I work for an American company and I am based in Europe. I visit the US for work every now and then. I heard a lot of horror stories regarding border entries. If I am ever in a situation where the border police asks for access to my personal phone and pin code, what are my options? Can I refuse and what happens then?
If you're on American soil they can just detain you. Or worse.
If you ever want nightmares, read the story of Maher Arar.
isn't the right move here: wipe your phone, travel to destination, then restore from cloud backup? in the middle, you can let them inspect your wiped phone.
Wipe it, let them inspect it, sell it, and buy a new one.
Good luck getting anyone close to this to go on the record about it though given such things normally come with corporate or government gag orders.
There are hundreds of privileged vendor binary blobs on most flagship devices not even Google gets source code to though so supply chain attacks should be assumed.
Sure, the NSA can probably pull this off. Thing is, the NSA probably does not need to do this at immigration.
I seriously doubt that this is a realistic problem if your threat model is anything less than "The NSA is very interested in me". In that case I don't see how you could trust any phone, regardless of it having been in the hands of border officials or not.
Sources: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-when-encounter...
https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/know-your-rights/know-your-r...
That doesn't mean they can't deny you entry. It means you might win a court case some day.
ICE cannot legally arrest people who are citizens for no reason, and yet they have done exactly that 30% of the time by their own admission.
"Knowing your rights" is meaningless if the public chooses to vote for people who don't care about those rights, and celebrate when you do not get your rights.
It doesn't matter what the paper says, it matters what CBP feels like doing, and what their management lets them get away with. The constitution is just a magic circle we all agree to play in, and isn't real if enough people disregard it.
If the border agent doesn't want you to come into the country, you are fucked. Nobody's job is to get between that agent and you and ensure the border agent follows the law on the paper, and the border agent will not go to jail or even lose their job for completely ignoring the law.
They can immediately arrest you, however.
There’s many points you could make about the United States and immigration, but I don’t think this is one of them.
That doesn't sound relevant.
Nobody said that they were obliged to admit you, they complained that the reasons for declining admittance were unfair. Unless you think "no obligation to admit" means carte blanche to decline for any reason, and to treat you however they like?
If so, then that is unreasonable. It is a much stronger condition than "I don't have to let you in".
I actually expected to leave and have my right to come back not dependent on GC status (which expires after 6 months), but due to family have stayed so far. by the by - I'm a citizen of that dangerous country bordering the US - Canada.
https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/edd-ean-eng.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/18/returning-trav...
Progressive utopias indeed
Of course, if you just don’t want anyone with intelligence or dignity to visit the country, this is great policy.
Peter might have good insights on whether the relevant case law has changed since 2017 though.
So your "burner phone" needs to be your primary phone, which is something that is hard to go back in time to fix.
People with no social media presence at all have been denied entry.
1) only bring burner devices
2) have your devices travel separately using some courier service
Yeah, they can still request your social media profiles and whatnot. You are not particularly likely to be denied entry because you don't have your normal devices with you, this is not very uncommon these days.
Of course it's better to be able to say that your employer requires you to do this, so it's probably good to ask your boss to write up such a policy. Otherwise "why?" could be a pretty uncomfortable question.
I'm a US citizen and my girlfriend is Iranian. She's been in the states for 7 years, first on a student visa then applied for her green card 1.5 yrs ago on NIW, currently "pending status change".
She's a jeweler and metal artist and owns a jewelry brand in the US. Never had any legal problems in the US, and nothing in her background of social media that would be a detriment to her review process.
Curious about your thoughts on the outlook for green card processing for Iranian citizens in general, given the administration's recent movements.
In her specific situation, would marriage provide a more robust chance of having her GC application approved? Is it even possible to re-apply for the GC while she's in the current "pending status change" state?
I went through CBP twice in the span of 20 hours. I was granted entry once and denied the second time. The second time, I had to sign some electronic pad and later a form (I-275) was given to me. Did I have the option not to sign? And is this contradictory decision in span of 20 hours legally OK?
Below are some more details:
At Toronto Pearson (Terminal 3) on December 1-2, 2025, I went through CBP twice and the first time I was granted entry and second time denied. I am a dual Canadian-Iranian citizen. On day one I was given a detailed biographical form, questioned repeatedly about my purpose of travel (Conference), employment, etc and especially about any Iranian military service. I provided old passports and a university transcript showing that I have not been in Iran since 2019 and prior to that I was studying in the university. They also explicitly questioned me about a prior incident in which Canadian police claimed an explosive trace ("Tetryl") on me, which I disputed as an error. CBP took my belongings (backpack, watch, wallet, phone), conducted a body inspection in another room (through search, hands inside my pants followed by groin search) took my fingerprints multiple times and took my phone after requiring the pass code and it was out of my possession for about an hour. After several hours they told me I was "negative" but by then my flight had departed. I was given only a piece of paper with CBP stamp. Since there was no flight for my airline for the rest of the day, I was brought back to the Canadian side. The day after, I went through CBP again and when I showed them their paper with stamp I was told "we are not going to take your word for it" and the full process happened again (although no body check or phone check this time). A different officer then stated that my documents were not sufficient to prove I had not done military service in Iran and that I now needed an official exemption letter or something similar from Iranian authorities. He added that I should have been "advised differently" the night before. Finally, my picture was taken and I was asked to sign on a pad twice. Only afterward did they print and hand me a form (I-275) showing a withdrawal of my application. I was escorted back to the Canadian side. Did I have the option not to sign? If in future I decide to visit US is this going to be held against me? I can provide more details or the form if necessary.
Does the government have any direct link to meta re what accounts people actually have. I’m surprised people aren’t up in arms about this, I guess it affects mostly visitors and immigrants but the fact that the government needs to see your activity on a private company’s web app is wild to me.
If they ask you "well, do you use any social media?" You'd presumably have to answer with HN, which maybe doesn't sound all that great :)
And who says that asking for your password is to gain entry?
Do you have a concrete example story that illustrates this?
Time waster.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-nationals-us-immigration-detain...
I suspect it would be important that any funds never reached you, so you couldn't simply receive money then donate that amount. Playing a charity gig where the receipts go directly to the charity would likely be fine, streaming/Spotify revenue I don't know, acting in a movie might be out of the question if it's being professionally shot because the producer might have insurance or other requirements that only paid performers and crew can be on set, etc.
However the practical answer is ask. Some visas like the J1 allow this - even consulting, provided it meets a bunch of criteria and relevant people sign off. It's not a trivial process, but it's not outright forbidden.
(not real advice. I think.)
Since overseas workers are still subject to 15-year amortizations I'm wondering if people are getting pulled in from Canada.
> Applicants for U.S. nonimmigrant visas (NIV) should schedule their visa interview appointments at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in their country of nationality or residence
> Applicants must be able to demonstrate residence in the country where they are applying, if the place of application is based on their residency.
What sort of proof is required to demonstrate residence? What about cases where an applicant legally has residency in a particular country (e.g. PR card or work visa) but in practice lives in the US as an H-1B/TN/L-1/O-1/etc. worker or H-4/TD/L-2/O-3/etc. dependant? Especially for the dual intent visas?
I'm currently living in the US on TN status and am married to an American. Have you heard of anyone on TN status having difficulty applying for a green card? And do you have any sense of what the wait times currently are, particularly how long until you can get a travel authorization?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/us/trump-green-card-inter...
That was tolerated previously.
It does appear that these arrests have stopped since the NYT article was written.
They have a green card interview because they married an American. But you can’t get an adjustment of status if you are in violation of your current visa terms.
This is both right and wrong. Congress passed a law ages ago that grants forgiveness to overstaying spouses once the greencard is issued. The AOS process is allowed.
The hole however is the AOS does not extend your authorized stay if you were out of status when it was filed. So this leaves one vulnerable to the ICE arrests.
However, your AOS can still be processed even when arrested because of the forgiveness granted by law, so it just becomes an issue of having a good lawyer to get a judge to intervene.
Subsection (a) allows the “Attorney General, in his discretion” to grant an adjustment of status.
Subsection (c) categorically denies adjustment of status under certain conditions, including where someone has violated the terms of their visa. This takes away the Attorney General’s discretion to grant an adjustment. The adjustment must be denied.
Subsection (e) then makes subsection (c) inapplicable where the immigrant enters into a bona fide marriage during a legal proceeding regarding their immigrant status. It’s not correct to call this a “forgiveness,” because it doesn’t guarantee you any sort of legal status. Instead, it takes away what would otherwise be a categorical bar against an adjustment of status. That puts you back under subsection (a), where the decision is made by the “Attorney General, in his discretion.” The law says the Attorney can grant you the adjustment of status, not that he must. Under the law, the Attorney General can still categorically deny any adjustments under those circumstances.
What’s happening here is that these people were here on tourist visas or completely illegally. Then at some point they married a U.S. citizen and filed a PERM application. But that filing doesn’t protect them from deportation for their original illegal status.
My understanding is that their time spent on the company before YC accepts them is the biggest risk factor?
The entire premise of your question is misaligned with the intention of the H1-B visa. Yes, everyone abuses its intent, but that isn't justification for more people to find more ways to abuse it. The abuse of that visa (and other visas) is why folks just want it abolished outright. I guess the purpose of a system is what it does, but it was sold to the American electorate as a way for companies to get access to talent that they simply cannot find domestically.
Trying to use the H1-B to hire a very specific person instead of any person with the skillset needed for the role would be in contradiction with the labor market test (LMT) needed for PERM status.
An H1-B can only work for the employer on the I-129 petition. There are some forms of passive income allowed but to placing shares in a trust and having an unpaid board seat just seems like an attempt to cheat the process because ultimately the goal is for her to work for this startup. Doing what your proposing puts a target on her head where anyone that is anti-H-1B can report her to USCIS and get her deported.
Moving home, working remotely and then applying for an L-1 seems like the correct approach here for what you're trying to do.
The first two options make sense but this latter option sounds like a risk. As I understand it, she can't earn any active income from this startup unless see has an I-129 for it. A share grant counts as income.
I mean, yeah you can work on a side project in your spare time that could become a business, but the moment employment and active income enters the picture that becomes something else.
However they keep flip flopping between me needing a B1 and me just using my ESTA for the training, and their communication hasn't been the most straight forward. Which visa do I need to get to enter the US for the training?
> attend short-term training (you may not be paid by any source in the United States with the exception of expenses incidental to your stay)
"source in the US" might be problematic if you're paid by the US company directly and not a UK arm. You'd have to take those days as unpaid, except for a per diem? If you're paid in pounds by a UK source, ought to be fine.
I would confidently say you do not need a C visa. That's for immediate transit (like you have to change airports or something, and you would use an ESTA anyway). A D visa is for people like airline crew who have to stay and have to work whilst there (like getting an aircraft ready for international departure from a US airport). If you needed that, your company ought to know.
In your view, who are the winners and losers of the recent H1B changes? And any changes on your perspective for YC harboring international talent in SF Bay Area?
A TN visa/status holder that applies for a EB Green Card by filing form I-485 is considered to have shown immigrant intent and will no longer be granted TN status in the future.
Is this bar permanent or would an applicant who failed to obtain a Green Card or surrendered it in the future be able to seek TN visa/status provided they could prove strong links to Mexico/Canada?
Many of the absurdities of the US immigration system exist for good reasons and it would be great to understand the nuances.
- Paper-free overhaul of the entire immigration system.
- Green Card recapture [0].
- Country of Birth caps abolished for Green Cards. Impossible to justify this as it doesn't serve the intended purpose since AC21 was passed.
- EAD/AP premium processing - so many livelihoods ruined and immigration journeys derailed because people can't get work authorization or cannot travel.
- TD holders granted working rights incident of status same as L2S.
Now for the not-so-popular suggestions...
- Diversity Lottery - there's bipartisan support to cancel the program and it's really hard to justify bringing almost 55k with a min of high school education into the country.
- Removal of F2B, F3, F4 family based categories to move inline with other developed nations immigration systems such as Canada [1].
[0] - https://www.fwd.us/news/green-card-recapture
[1] - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
You are saying that since, for example, Indians can remain indeterminately as long as they are employed, they are de facto kind of like in a green card situation already, therefore country caps don't make sense?
That would mean then that every other country wait will go up for over a decade, with all the backlog that India has (1.2M vs 140k EB green cards per year).
I'd brave it out and stick to your guns.
After all, facts are facts.
If an i-131 is pending, would you advise that person to return briefly to USA before their 1 year date of exit (ensuring that they are never out of USA for greater than 1 year prior to approved i-131)?
Or does a reentry permit allow them to remain out of country for longer than that even if pending (presuming it gets approved)?
There is some uncertainty about whether Auer deference survives after Loper Bright.
What impacts are you seeing as a result of the $100K H-1B fee which took effect on 9/21/25?
Assuming a US startup is considering engineering hires outside the United States, how does one currently assess the likelihood of getting them a visa to work in the USA? And what timeline and cost would be involved?
OR should I just close it and try the normal route? Thanks in advance!
For anyone who has one US citizen parent and one non-citizen parent, where the citizen parent has passed before the child applicant for naturalization reaches 18 years of age, resulting in the applicant applying for and receiving naturalization as an adult, can that same currently naturalized citizen also obtain natural born citizenship status through the deceased citizen parent and would it be advisable?
I am planning to move to San Francisco to join the startup ecosystem. Regarding the H-1B visa, what does the current process and timeline look like for a new applicant? Given the lottery constraints, are there specific 'red flags' or common mistakes I should avoid when looking for a sponsor?
The educational institution sent the student's home address some tax form that he had to file by April 15, but the former student forgot to do that.
The question is: would the student have problems getting a U.S. visa as a tourist and entering the U.S. several years after that? If yes, how could that be fixed? Thanks in advance.
But as PRoberts said, a non-citizen spouse can't enter on a tourist visa with the intention to change status. A spouse can visit, but then change their mind while in the US.
But CBP is well aware of people trying to shortcut the process this way, so it can be very challenging convincing CBP your non-citizen spouse intends to leave. But it can be done showing a job, property or other elements that would require someone to go back.
should it be d3 or i601?
Curious how the statistics/success rates are looking?
Do you think there are risks involved with leaving (and hence returning to) the country on a Green Card?
A few I registered a company in Delaware as a foreign company for SaaS business.
I have been unable to complete an organization certificate for my website.
Unfortunately I could not get one since my legal phone is not the way to reach me and they tell me that they cannot change that phone to reach me according to my legal representatives in Delaware.
I need some kind of certificate of good standing or being able to have a verifiable phone and/or email to reach me in a "reliable" way from a third party source.
How could I proceed for this, since I am not knowledgeable of the law in Delaware. Probably I need an attorney and I would be happy if I can be recommended one that could emit such verification.
Do you think H1B visa holders looking to move to a Green Card (in coordination with their employer) should be concerned about rejected applications or other issues?
I do understand that performative victimhood is much easier as it does not require much intellectual honesty.
I assume it means TN visas are dead in six months if the written notice clause is respected.
Is the zombie CUSFTA now out of dormancy? Can we now use the TC visa? If CUSFTA dies as well, what are the other options and how long does it take to process?
... but what about when non-US citizens leave the US?
For example, as a Canadian, if I'm down in the US and, on my way back up to Canada, a US border officer requests access to my phone and I decline... what happens then?
How can an European Senior SWE land a job, let’s say, SF and have some kind of guarantee regarding the visa before flying into the US.
The 100K cost for the H-1B is so absurd that it crushes any hope of me ever participating in Silicon Valley or any other tech hub in the US. Is the tech alive or are companies just relocating to EU/others?
You are a sample of '1' and you don't get to invalidate other people's experiences based on your own. The only reason you do not notice, given that it is true is because you would either rather have it not be true or because you are actively working not to notice.
Do you know of the fable of a goose that laid a golden egg once a day?
You are proposing to kill the goose to see if you can get multiple golden eggs at once.
> country with an identity
Like it or not, the identity is 'land of opportunities' and not 'land of anglo-saxons who emigrated before ~1850'
How would you justify it's you should get the work/money, not imigrant worker? The fact your parents immigrated earlier than they should justify it in your opinion?
The fact that I'm American justifies it. If Americans flooded into say, Somalia, bought up all the houses, took up all the jobs etc, you'd be horrifically offended.
Americans have no where else to go. This is my home and I will not abandon it. You can't just drop 50 million extra workers into a country and expect people to just take it.
It's like saying you are white male and it justifies higher salary.
Also if you struggle to compete with immigrants who usually have no network, English is not their native language, have many other disadvantages - you are doing something wrong or are not competitive in the first place.
The fact is you should not fight against imigration, you should fight for decent payment for it and same rights
We are incredibly atomized in the west, foreigners always have more closely knit networks. They always help each other out. People who make the arguments you're making are almost always foreigners. You have no say in the affairs of my nation. You should leave.