Visa & More: Frequently Asked Questions

As always, here are a few of our customers' questions, answered by our counselors. All of our counselors possess many years of experience with the American immigration law and have profound knowledge of visa regulations, kept up-to-date by constant further and advanced training.

Please note that the following answers, even if they seem to apply to your individual situation, do not necessarily have to be the correct answer for you.
Since each situation is different, no responsibility is taken for the correctness of this information. To get information and advice for your own individual situation, please only rely on personal counsel and assistance from our experts.

The American Dream GmbH is accredited as an emigration counseling center for the for travel to the US according to German "Auswandererschutzgesetz" (emigrant protection law) and is a member of the American Chamber of Commerce.

Please let us know how we can help you. If you need counseling or an appointment, please contact us and we will assist you flexibly and as soon as possible. Any questions concerning our services and prices can be asked online anytime.

YOUR QUESTION: I have already been in the US on the J-1 Visa for 18 months. I worked in the management department of a hotel chain. Now I want only one thing, I want to go BACK to the US! I am currently working in another hotel of the same chain and I would like to go back to a hotel in the US next. I think I need the H-1B that I have to apply for myself, don't I?

OUR ANSWER: Only US employers may submit petitions for the H-1B visa. However, no H-1B petitions can be filed at the moment, since US authorities had received more than enough applications for this year within a matter of days. Just like last year, they will even have to use a random selection process due to the high number of petitions received. For the H-1B a bachelor's degree would be the minimum requirement, or job training in the hotel business equivalent to the degree and at least 12 years of work experience in the field, preferably in a management position. An additional requirement is evidence for additional qualifications.
I don't know how your hotel chain handles these things, but according to experience, they often tend to be a little reluctant when it comes to visa applications. Quite frequently, they are only willing to become active when important employees, who have been with the company a long time, are to be transferred from the locations abroad to the US. That's probably due to the fact that both H-1B and L-1 visa are only worth the effort if the employee is indeed highly qualified, since the entire visa process is very expensive and time-consuming. In any case, it is vitally important that the management in your home country or in the US is financially and actively involved in the process, no matter whether you are going for the L, E, or H-visa.

Maybe the H-2B visa would be an option for you, for that, the position would first have to be advertised outside the company, which is not required for the H-1B.

YOUR QUESTION: I want to go to the US as an au pair in June this year. I checked your website, but I couldn't really find all the answers to my questions and just wanted to ask you directly about some things, before starting the visa process. My stay as an au pair is not going to be organized by any kind of organization, but by myself and the host family. A family that I am friends with invited me and all I have is a letter with the invitation and the payment we agreed on. Different from the au pair jobs via an organization, I will not be earning any money, but just have "board and lodging." Now, when I was checking all the visa options, I thought the J-1 may apply, but since I don't have an official employer, at least not a company, and no payment, I just wasn't sure. Could you please help me?

OUR ANSWER: If you are one of the regular readers of our newsletter, you will certainly have noticed by now that in situations like these, we unfortunately always have to give our customers the same disappointing response - in general, going to the US as an au pair is only possible if you are registered with an au pair organization. The same applies to the host family, which also has to be registered in order to be allowed to take you in. For the application, the consular officer will need form DS-2019 that can only be issued by au pair organizations.
Only on the basis of that form is he allowed to issue the J-1 visa. Everything else would be against the rules, and he would get into serious trouble if he didn't abide by them. Unfortunately, your host family may not fill out the DS-2019.
Please note: for what you have described, you will always need the J-1 visa. Anything else, e.g. the B-2 visa as an alternative, is not acceptable. It is always being tried as an alternative, but it also always causes significant trouble. You would then have even more trouble than before, since a denied B-2 visa does not make it any easier to be admitted at the border.

YOUR QUESTION: My boyfriend and I would like to go on vacation to the US for 3-4 weeks next year. How old do we have to be to travel to the US without a legal guardian?

OUR ANSWER: You have to be 18 (not 21, as in the US). It's also possible to travel to the US if you are under 18, if your parents provide a notarized letter (translated into English) stating that you may travel alone and a host family is meeting you at the airport. The right to determine the whereabouts of their child (German law: Aufenthaltsvestimmungsrecht) as a part of parental care and custody has to be officially transferred to the host family for that period of time. The border officials should have received a letter from your host family stating that they will take you in, meet you at the airport etc. before your arrival. You have to have an appropriate passport with you.

YOUR QUESTION: We have booked the following flights: On January 16, 2006, we are going to fly to Orlando, where we will stay for four days. After that, we are going to fly to Mexico on January 20, 2009. We will fly back to Orlando on February 3, 2009. We will stay there for one night and fly back to Frankfurt on February 4, 2009. We have flight tickets for all this. Our trip ends in Frankfurt. Our question is, can we get into trouble with the US authorities because we are flying from the US to Mexico, but also have tickets showing that we are going back to Frankfurt via the United States?

Can we travel under the Visa Waiver Program? Especially because we are going to leave the US after four days and come back for one more day two weeks later. There are three of us (two adults, one child) and we all a red German passport with eChip.

OUR ANSWER: No, you won't have any problem with that, because there are no rules for the number of times you can enter and leave the country during the 90 days if you have a valid passport (see below). The Visa Waiver Program (visa-free travel) is also meant to be a transit program for German citizens to enter and leave the country multiple times. Separate transit visas such as those for nationals of other countries do not exist for German citizens. You can check right here whether your passports with data chip are valid: german.germany.usembassy.gov/germany-ger/visa/vwinfo.html