The E-3 is a nonimmigrant visa that allows Australian citizens to temporarily come to the US to work for a US employer in a professional capacity. To qualify for this visa, Australian foreign nationals must have a legitimate offer of employment in the US with a salary that complies with Department of Labor requirements, fill a position that qualifies as a specialty occupation (i.e., a professional job that requires a bachelor’s degree or higher in a specific field of study), and hold at least a bachelor’s degree (or the equivalent work experience) in a field related to the position.
Read moreOPINION: L-1B Careful: the Difficulties of the Specialized Knowledge Visa
If there is anything a seasoned immigration lawyer is sure of, it is to tread carefully with the L-1B visa petition. The L-1B visa is for intra-company transfers of employees who have been working for the foreign parent, subsidiary, or affiliate branch for at least one year. The transferee must be coming to the US branch office of the company to work in a position that requires “specialized knowledge” (whereas an L-1A is for an executive or manager). What exactly “specialized knowledge” means has been a subject so frequently discussed in immigration case law, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) memoranda, lawyer forums, conferences, and office water cooler chats, that a person could read for days straight and end up just as confused as they were when they started. After all that, the reader may see no correlation between what they just read and how USCIS currently adjudicates L-1Bs.
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