USA work permit/visa
 

It's likely that my son, James, will be given the chance of a few weeks work in USA (playing in a band :) ). If that went well he might be offered a more permanent position.

James' mate told him that getting a 6 month work visa should be OK but a permanent visa was a different kettle of fish!

I guess we need to go onto USA Embassy site and start downloading forms?

Any one been through this process and can give any tips e.g. timescale? He would just try for a temporary permit to start with.

TIA, David

PS. James is UK citizen with clean record.

H1B does not start until march i think ?

From 19 to 22 I lived in california, It was a NIGHTMARE. I went over with a band to tour.
To be honest the label at the time advised us to ship all our instruments over and go on a 3 month visitor visa.
We did, we got paid cash for all the shows and it worked out. I then got sponsored by a record label that I worked at. But it wasnt easy.

If its for a tour, do it for cash, Another band on the label went over and arrived in NJ with there guitars in tow. They ended up on the flight home.

One of the reasons I'm in Canada is because getting a work permit/visa for the US was extremely difficult. They are very funny about working in the US, I think it's because it is seen as taking a job from an American citizen. My/Our situation is somewhat different than most as we were looking to relocate five people, and we'd not be employing more than one US Citizen for quite some time, and as said, I don't think they were impressed about this. The annoying thing was that we are a very specialized company and as such, very, very few, if any US citizens could do the job without substantial training, whereas we'd be able to do it right away.

Obviously talking to the US Embassy in the UK is a good thing to do. There are many, many sites about how to obtain a work permit / visa to work in the US, so a google on that subject would be handy. It's also worthwhile having a look/post on here, which is a British expats forum (There are probably quite a few of these as well). The people on there should be able to give advice as to what can and cannot be done.

I think what James would probably want is a working holiday visa, thought I could be wrong. This should, in theory, allow him to work for anyone. Otherwise you need to start specifying who you will be employed by, and they need to submit an application as well, and then it'll be determined as to wether he get's a visa or not, and this can take a while.
If it's anything like the Canadian Skilled Worker Visa then you're looking at 18 months before you get one.

If he's only going to be there for 90 days or less, then one could go in as a visitor under the visa waiver program. He could go as a tourist, or if he want's say he is there on business, but they'll ask all manner of questions at that point. To be frank, it's probably not worth risking doing it this way, just in case he's caught out, as he'd be bounced on a return flight and not allowed back into the US for quite some time.