Not a lawyer. The VWP (ESTA) for business specifically says:
> 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.
Some visas that are employment-limited specifically mention volunteering and charitable work as problematic. You do not need to personally gain financially. A crude way to tell is "is this an activity which someone could be paid for, even if I'm doing it for free?"
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.
Having tried both strategies, unless your task is brain-dead simple and/or you have a way to cheaply and deterministically validate the labels, always pay to retain the team.
Even if you can afford only a couple of people a month and it takes 5x as long, do it. It's much eaiser to deal with high quality data than to firefight large quantities of slop. Your annotators will get faster and more accurate over time. And don't underestimate the time it takes to review thousands of labels. Even if you get results l in 5 hours, someone has to check if it's any good. You might find that your bottleneck is the review process. Most shops can implement a QA layer for you, but not requesting it upfront is a trap for young players.
Let's assume the amount is fixed. One approach is to ask to re-frame the position to be better value.
Ask for working hours that effectively pays you more per day, like an 80% contract at the same comp. If they mumble HR and hours, offer to do 4x10 hour days. The magic phrase in corporate is "flexible working". This doesn't solve your comp going up, but you get a 3-day weekend and 52 more holidays a year.
This one even works at intensely bureaucratic organisations like universities. With grants, the amount you can be paid is very fixed, but almost anything else can be approved if three people sign off on it.
Foreign students normally enter via a non-immigrant visa (F1), or rather they are eligible to apply for that visa at an embassy, if a registered sponsor supports it. The visa permits a request for entry into the country for the purpose of study (at a port of entry). The most important document that you need day to day is a DS-2019 and you must remain "in F1 status" in the SEVIS system for the duration of your program. If you don't leave the US, you don't need another visa even if your original one expires, the university can issue you a new DS-2019 annually until your end-of-program date. That's up to 5 years dependent on the category. If you leave after your visa expires you have to renew it out of the country, which is normally straightforward (using the dropbox system).
The government has not prevented foreign people from studying or working at Harvard, they have withdrawn their ability to maintain status while at Harvard. Hence why they can transfer to another institution.
You can view the DS-2019 as more like a work permit. The visa lets you leave and re-enter the country.
Some European countries work in a comparable way where you don't need a visa at all (depending where you're from), but you can't stay unless you have a valid work permit.
The F/J exhange visa is tied to a specific sponsor (ie the University) for a very specific goal. There are a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do. If your visa sponsor has its privilege revoked then presumably you have a choice to transfer to a different institute, if one will take you, or leave the country.
There is a mechanism for that transfer built into the visa, which could be used for example if your professor moved institutions and wanted to re-hire you to fulfil the original goals of your exchange program.
It's unclear if this affects all foreign academic staff, many of whom who would be on the J, or just the F visa.
The difference in the US is that it's (comparably) extremely difficult to change status from a temporary visa to a permanent one. Even if you are highly qualified. For example the most common academic visa, the J1, is explicitly a temporary exchange program and you can't have immigrant intent (on application). Most universities won't give out academic H1Bs even though they're cap-free.
In most European countries, once you're in, you can find a way to stay. One exception I can think of is Switzerland, which can be pretty annoying for temporary visas because they don't count for time accrual.
Austria has a pretty good system (RWR) that lets you job seek and is a pathway to permanent residency as a 3rd country citizen. I think there are similar programs in France and Germany.
For example "very highly qualified" in Austria is satisfied by almost anyone with a STEM degree, being under 35 and (amazingly) being an English speaker. If you have that initial visa, companies can hire you without worrying about sponsorship.
You could also use that as a route to the Blue card I think. I wouldn't say the bar is exactly low, but a lot of mobile people are sufficiently educated and are paid enough. As in, a typical European STEM salary would cover it.
But also the grandparent's comment is out of touch. Of course countries want people who are more skilled than local labor, that's the whole point. Aside from the benefit of attracting talent and higher tax revenue, it's much harder for your voters to argue that immigrants are taking your jobs this way.
> 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.
reply