startups that rarely have money coming in at first. Indeed, the filing fees for applying for an H-1B visa can cost nearly $4000, and that’s not even including attorney’s fees.
Things become even more muddled when the employee is also a co-founder or even owner of the startup. This is because of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services provisions that an H-1B employee has a demonstrable employee/employer relationship with the sponsoring company.
This can be a difficult task for a co-founder who may himself have authority over employees as well as hiring and firing responsibilities. In cases like this, according to the USCIS, the startup can “provide evidence that there is a separate board of directors which has the ability to hire, fire, pay, supervise or otherwise control the beneficiary’s employment.” Ultimately, as long as there is another entity that acts as a check on the employee’s authority, even if he or she is a majority shareholder, an H-1B visa may still be attainable.
But the H-1B visa is not a gateway to a green card. It is a work visa rather than an immigrant visa. If a startup founder finds great success in the U.S. and wants to stay beyond the six-year limit, he or she will have to begin an entirely new process of immigration applications and paperwork.
Suggestions for Change
Large technology companies have long urged Congress to increase the quantity H-1B visas—claiming there aren’t enough American developers, programmers and engineers to fill their open jobs.
But raising the annual cap, still won’t enable startups to be able to compete with the tech giants in luring H-1B talent. Most startups and small firms lack human-resources departments to handle the complex paperwork, and the funds to cover legal expenses associated with hiring someone under the program.
Only about 30 percent of applications for H-1B visas make it past the preliminary stage of the process, the bulk of which are filed by startups and small employers. Many small companies have given up on recruiting H-1B workers because the risks of an application being rejected are too high.
In order to help start-ups and small businesses obtain H-1Bs, there must be a more simplified procedure to let them recruit the workers they need. Many small tech companies do not have the resources to ensure numerous forms and procedures are done correctly, and before the annual quota fills up.
Of roughly 70,000 employers who applied for H-1B visas on behalf of their workers in 2011, nearly half applied for just one, and most applied for less than 10—suggesting they were startups or small employers. By contrast, larger technology companies such as Intel have applied for more than 1,400 of the visas each.
Another way for startups and small firms to have a chance, is for H-1B visas to be set aside directly for them, so that they aren’t always competing head-to-head with much larger employers. Despite the “mountain of paperwork” that a firm had to provide along with added fees and legal costs that would not be required for a local hire, many start ups still have hope for H-1Bs. Talent is the most important thing. Startups need the ability to look for the best people possible. But with the current system, this is not feasible.
