Thread: Advice on moving to USA.

Dear countrymen, although still in the embreonic stage, my Wife, two daughters (9 and 12) are considering the possibility of moving to the USA. I am in my last two years of service of a twenty four year career in the Royal Navy and we always said that when my time was up in the RN, the world is our oyster. We have a lovely house in England and live in a pleasant village in the East Midlands but we still believe life could be better. Just greedy I suppose.
My wife has a Master's Degree and is Chartered in HR, as well as possessing a BA Honours First in Human Geograpy. Are these qualifications transferable to the US job market. Our area of choice would be the North East (Maine, New England) area, we love Portland. We have visited a few times and love the area.
Talking to people who have also considered the move and indeed have tried to emigate to the US, it would appear that the chance of actually getting over the pond to live is a complete non-starter. If so then why so many expats living there?
Can someone please let me know their experiences and give me their honest opinions on whether to start the ball rolling now as we are aware it can take a couple of years for this to come to fruition.
Best of regards to you all over there.
AS.

Hi aquasulis,
Sorry I didn't reply to your post sooner. Anyway, I live with my husband in Marin County just outside San Francisco. We came over here last year after two years of waiting for our Visas.
My husband is on a H1B visa and I'm on a H4. He can work here, I can't but we can both travel in and out of the US as often as we want I can go travel backwards and forwards when working in the UK.
You can read up about the different Visas on
www.usimmigrationsupport.org
My husband was able to apply for a H1B after being offered a job in the Bay area and as his spouse I was automatically eligible for a H4. It's all about the offer of employment. I'm far more qualified than my husband and was on a higher wage than him in the UK but he's the one that got the job offer first.
He got his job offer quite by accident. He knew a colleague who had moved to Pheonix and called him to see if there were jobs there and was instead given a contact name in the Bay area. He called him on the phone to introduce himself and they said 'drop by when you're in town'!! So when we were on holiday in California later that year we stopped by the offices of the company. After talking with him for an hour they offered him the job!
By the time our Visa applications were processed there were so many applicants they changed to a lottery system. I'm not sure if that's still the case but it can be gut-wrenching if it happens.
The other way in is money. And running your own business. I think the business has to employ a certain number of Americans and have a certain level of turnover but I'm not sure. I think they're called Treaty Visas and they enable the spouse to work.
The one thing I will say is that if you want to do it then go for it. It was a very stressfull endeavour for us which just helped to re-inforce that we were ready to make the change and it was worth it.