This is sadly a pretty obvious case. The author was moving to the US to start a company. It wasn't to travel, nor to pop in and out to conduct business, and calling yCombinator a training program is a stretch. It might be, but it's a 'training program' that helps you start a business. A simple google would have told the agent what was what.
Blame dumb visa requirements, not the agents who actually managed to catch you out. The laws need to be changed, and Obama actually got the point in his SOTU.
In my five years living in the US during the first dot com boom first a student then on an H1B visa I knew enough not to bother trying to start a business. I've since started or helped start over 10, but none in the USA. Their loss.
I would go so far as to say that calling YCombinator "training" is an outright lie. It's a business incubator and angel investment program; they pay you to develop a prototype, and introduce you to potential investors.
I feel misled after reading the article. Not knowing the context, I assumed that he was actually referring to some sort of training; something like business school, in which you pay to be taught. Instead, being given an initial investment to form a corporation, write a prototype, and shop it around to venture capitalists is pretty much the definition of "doing business," even if it is only the first few steps.
I can imagine why CBP officers would feel misled as well. And it doesn't help that he is saying he had no intention of keeping the business in the US. Starting up a business in the US just to take the capital and move the business overseas? This isn't something that a lot of border officers are going to take kindly to, nor is there likely to be much in the way of laws encouraging it.
I would absolutely like to make it easier for successful, smart, and educated people to immigrate to the US, and make it easy for people to immigrate to the US in order to start a business. But going to the US to hit up investors, work for three months to get a prototype going, and then move the business elsewhere? You're going to have a hard time selling that.
Right now America doesn't. You're making a philosophical argument in the context of a US Border cross where predetermined visa categories have already been established.
Glad you posted this, otherwise I was going to do so. The weird wording of "business training" immediately set alarm bells off and I assumed something like Y Combinator. It sounds like a weird generic reworking of the truth you'd use when you know you're trying to skirt around the rules.
Perhaps if he was able to prove that his business was not in the USA and that it would not be in the USA, then he may have been able to show the difference between training and returning, and incubating a new business.
That's pretty messed up that people trying to start a business in America are considered criminals. Then again, it's not with the visas only - even being fully legal resident or citizen, you still need papers and permits and licenses to do business, or you're a criminal. It's like they go out of their way to discourage people from doing business.
even being fully legal resident or citizen, you still need papers and permits and licenses to do business, or you're a criminal
Er... What? You create a business in order to give yourself legal protection. You can go mow lawns, or do contract software, or whatever, without forming a business. But by forming a business you 1) give yourself personal liability protection and 2) create more options for handling taxation.
It's like they go out of their way to discourage people from doing business.
That's not really true. For something like $150, and minimal paperwork, I can start a business right now, in my state. In fact, it was only $50 until just a couple of years ago.
Starting a business from another country, however, is another matter. I don't think it should be particularly easy for a non-American-resident to start an American business.
It is easy to for a non-American resident to start an American business.
I started a Delaware corporation a few years back, and it took a couple of hundred dollars to a company to have them set it up for us. It would've been cheaper except for some complexities in the way we wanted thing set up.
The only thing that's slightly more hassle is getting a US business banking account set up, but that's easy enough too (my first attempt at getting a US bank account many years ago required me to go in person to the US consulate to have them certify my signature and a copy of my passport, and that's the most hassle it's ever been).
If you want to work for your new US corporation _in_ the US, that's another matter.
You did this through a registered agent service, correct? How did you get a federal EIN? Is it really your business, or is it a business of the registered agent, who defers to you?
Blame dumb visa requirements, not the agents who actually managed to catch you out. The laws need to be changed, and Obama actually got the point in his SOTU.
In my five years living in the US during the first dot com boom first a student then on an H1B visa I knew enough not to bother trying to start a business. I've since started or helped start over 10, but none in the USA. Their loss.