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Immigrants lacking papers work legally – as their own bosses
- evli 13y agoAn immigration law reform is ever increasingly necessary. If there wasn't opportunity for foreigners they wouldn't come here in the first place.
- wait_for_it 13y agoAt least they can create their own companies in the US. I am currently a freelance frontend engineer who needs to scale to hire people but I can't start my own company in France. I have to do it with a French associate who must be the president. I have the chance of doing it with my best friend. By the way, they refused to renew my papers because I dropped out of school to be the CTO in a startup who made it to a notorious national journal.
- wtn 13y agoI think "notorious national journal" == "well-read national newspaper".
- dalke 13y agoI looked for and found http://www.colestreet.com/starting-your-first-business-in-france-here-are-the-steps-and-some-great-tips/ http://www.colestreet.com/starting-your-first-business-in-fr... about starting a company in France. Wow. Just wow.
- mahyarm 13y agoTry Switzerland?
- einhverfr 13y agoI am facing a similar issue with Indonesia. Really, regarding France, just start an Ltd in the UK and hire people in France (evil grin). I am a part owner of a UK LTD (http://www.efficito.com http://www.efficito.com) and neither our stockholders nor our directors, nor our officers are from the UK. It made it slightly harder to get a bank account opened in the Netherlands though.
- e12e 13y agoAny bank you would recommend?
- einhverfr 13y agoI don't know of any in France. My understanding in all cases is that it really helps to know folks at the bank. So I would start at where you currently do your banking and see what you can do there.
- e12e 13y agoI actually meant in the Netherlands :-)
- einhverfr 13y agoI won't say we have a lot of experience and I feel a bit odd making a recommendation based on being in business for less than a year.... (I am in Indonesia and this makes it a bit harder to feel secure in my recommendations.) Feel free to email me at chris@efficito.com and I will talk with my business partner (who is in the Netherlands) a bit more before giving a recommendation.
- jacquesm 13y agoI used to recommend rabobank, but as of late I've shifted to ABN/Amro. The story behind why I'd drop a 19 year banking relationship is longer than there is room for in this comment box here but it wasn't a triviality. I'll report on ABN/Amro in another 20 years or so :)
- DrJokepu 13y agoCan't you like, form a company in another EU member state with more flexible rules (UK comes to mind) and then operate/provide services in France, which you are allowed to do so due to EU freedom of movement of capital, goods, service and people?
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- patio11 13y agoFeel free to run this by an immigration lawyer if it matters to you, but "Opening an LLC is legal regardless of immigration status" is true. It doesn't imply that working for your own LLC is legitimate absent a work-capable visa. The Times is mostly reporting on a way which currently avoids controls designed to make working illegally (which is, ahem, not uncommon) more difficult. In a similar fashion, owning a LLC makes it radically easier to not pay income taxes than being a W-2 employee, but it does not excuse you from paying income taxes.
- tokenadult 13y agoThe analysis from patio11 is essentially correct. It is NOT legal to be living in the United States unless one has a citizenship or visa status that allows doing so. What forming an LLC does is avoid many of the enforcement mechanisms that reveal persons who are in the United States illegally. But if you are found anyway, nothing about forming the LLC will protect you from being deported. You don't gain an immigration status by forming the LLC--what you gain is a way of making a living. If you are making a living in the United States without work permission, you are still an illegal immigrant. Simply put, the newspaper headline is WRONG--there is nothing legal about working in those circumstances. (Obligatory disclaimer: I am simply describing the immigration law of the United States as it is, not as I might desire it to be.)
- dalke 13y ago"Simply put, the newspaper headline is WRONG" I think there's a fuzzy line, but that fuzziness could be in my own head. In my LLC I had no employees. My company made money, and I did an owner's draw when I wanted money from the company. I worked, but I didn't work as an employee. The work laws target employees, not owners, and I think that's the distinction the article is trying to make.
- tokenadult 13y agoEvery country that limits immigration (most) makes limits on working in the country without proper status. The United States immigration statutes and regulations most certainly do NOT say that a foreign person without proper visa status may form an LLC and then work here. That may not be the easiest part of immigration law to enforce, but the newspaper headline says "legally," and that is just flat wrong.
- wtn 13y agoIf you want to engage independent contractor in the US, you need to solicit federal form W-9 which requires the contractor to provide a Taxpayer Identification Number (Employer Identification Number or Social Security Number). If you are engaging a corporation, they usually don't have to provide a W-9. If you are a contractor trying to register as a company, you need to put a Social Security Number for each owner/officer on the registration forms (in most [all?] of the United States). Persons who aren't authorized to work can get an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) which is a restricted Social Security Number. Restrictions include no ability to collect benefits and expiration after five years. EDIT: By "register a company" I meant that if you have an ITIN you at least have a number to put in that space on the registration form. Whether or not the jurisdiction will accept the number will vary. Whether or not banks in the area will let you open an account will vary by jurisdiction as well.
- techsupporter 13y agoNeither Texas nor Washington State appear to require SSN/ITIN information when forming a corporation. I've formed corporations in both states and haven't needed to supply my SSN. The form to request an EIN for the corporation also doesn't request the individual preparer's SSN. When I opened bank accounts for these, I was requested to provide my SSN as a "unique identifier" for me but, with some of the banks/credit unions I used, I was told it is optional.
- Torgo 13y agoDACA recipients are not under threat of deportation and are eligible for US work permits. Arizona law still prevents Carla Chavarria from getting a driver's license, but not working AFAIK. I have specifically seen it as an argument against the driver's license law that it makes it hard for DACA people to get a job.
- danielharan 13y agoWow, so a person is brought into a country a 7. At 20, she still has no legal right to be there, and if caught, can be sent back to "her" country? That's effed up.
- tehwalrus 13y agosimilar things for some Britons, mostly of Jamaican origin. If they arrived as children after some date in the 80s, they're in the country "legally", but they're not citizens. They're not allowed to get a passport, and if they leave the country there's no guarantee they'll be allowed back in. Often, they don't realise this until they're ~20, whenever they first apply for a passport - and they have to go through a lengthy process of applying for citizenship, which can take up to 5 years (or longer, what was that backlog?) and still might not be successful. Which can kind of mess up your holiday plans. (In fairness, they can at least get a job!)
- nandemo 13y agoI think part of the reason is: (a) Parents will immigrate with their kids knowing that they won't have legal residence status. I know some immigrants are escaping dire poverty or persecution, but not all. So I think parents have some responsibility here. (b) Plus, the US is relatively lax in enforcing immigration laws. People do (a) and get work, send their kids to school, buy a house, etc. There's no way you could get away with that in (say) Japan.
- coldtea 13y agoHow about this: 300 million people are brought (illegally) to the country at 7. At 20, should they have a legal right to be there?
- jacquesm 13y ago> At 20, should they have a legal right to be there? Absolutely. After all, if 13 years is not enough to locate and deport them those people have a right to a continued existence in the place where they are now completely at home and integrated. Anything else would be inhuman.