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Unless you have an exceptional skill (and you don't) you will need a sponsor. To be honest I doubt you're going to find one since you don't have a skill that isn't readily available already over in the US and you've already made it clear you're only going for one year so there's no point the company investing in you as a long term prospect.

 

You could look at some of the theme parks (Disney, Universal both have international recruitment) as they are used to taking foreign employees for relatively short contracts - you're going to be working at the very bottom rung of the ladder though as again no-one is going to go to the expense of training you up to work one of the main shows/events knowing that you'll be gone in a year's time.

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If it's the purely technical matter of getting a visa then you need to speak to an attorney - precisely which visa is appropriate for you depends on your nationality, legal status, the status of the company employing you, the sector your're working in and any employment "swap" agreements in place. It will also involve a fair bit of involvement from your future employers so they will almost certainly want you to use a legal advisor of their choosing or at least one their own legal expert is comfortable with.

 

American visa's are not something you can DIY with a form on the internet.

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You and your work provider should talk carefully about this, You both need professional legal advice from a specialist firm that you are both comfortable with.

You then need to realise that you will be most unlikely to acquire right to work or reside in the USA after your placement, so you need to realise that you will learn a foreign jargon and make NO useful contacts for your future gainful employment while your fellow students should be out there networking to gain useful contacts for work after graduation.

 

Of course if you have dual nationality and right of work and abode in both countries things may be easier.

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I don't have an issue with you being a trading company while at college/Uni, it's how you get three years experience and a degree in three years. HOWEVER Going to the USA will give you a training with all the foreign agencies eg OHSA rather than HSE and several other things used in the States that are not used in the UK. You will also lose all the contacts that you have made in the UK. While it may be possible to get an internship in the USA please be certain that it will benefit your career. Many people would be very happy to leave education with three years business and contacts and contracts behind them and just settle down into their own job. Far too many people end up leaving education with a certificate but no job and no prospects of one.

 

PS

You have NOT got the job sorted til you get the visa sorted, life in the USA without the correct visa can be very unpleasant -ie behind bars, and barred from re-entry for ever, so you might not be allowed to tour a big show in thirty years if you fall foul of their immigration rules now.

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On the importance of getting your paperwork in order...

 

Just before the summer my niece was due to move to Canada to start a new job. She had a proper job lined up, had the necessary visa in place, had left her old job and had flights booked and paid for. On arrival in Canada they spotted a mistake on her paperwork. The result? She was put on the very next plane back to the UK. Because she's been refused entry they have an automatic ban on re-applying for 12 months. So she had no job to go to, no job in the UK and lost the money for the flights.

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Indeed. People think Canadian immigration are pussycats. It couldn't be further from the truth. They're just as ruthless as the US. One of the motivations for getting my Citizenship was that it's permanent and I wouldn't have to deal with CIC ever again.
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I know you're not liking what you're hearing but...

 

Before I retired I worked for an international TV news company. It was owned by one of the American networks but, for various practical reasons, head office was London.

 

As such we'd fairly often want to send somebody from our London staff to work in New York or Washington DC.

 

Despite the facts that we were technically an American company and the people we'd want to send we're highly experienced and qualified, we had to jump through hoops to get people in. Even though we had our own admin staff and lawyers on retainer, we never tried to process the visa applications ourselves. We'd use specialist immigration lawyers (at a cost of around $5000 a pop in the 1990s) and had to be prepared to wait for months.

 

In the case of an intern I believe there's a specific visa known as a Class J. However, to get it you'll still need sponsorship from your potential employer. Also be aware that, unless things have changed, they're allowed to pay you expenses but not a large salary and your work must not be in place of any Americans who might otherwise be employed.

 

I stress that I'm not an expert (and even my little knowledge is many years out of date) but what you're after is NOT an easy or straight forward process.

 

The other thing to watch for is that almost every result you get when trying to research this will be a commercial enterprise trying to sell you their services in getting a visa. Persist until you find an actual government web site and, if you do decide to use an agency, make sure they're reputable.

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My father worked for the UK arm of a major US company, when they wanted to send him to Dayton on a course it was a struggle to get the visa even though he needed the course to work for the UK company. Even then there were big warnings not to go on the wrong visa (he already had tourist lifetime visa but that wouldn't do).

 

Please tell, WHY are you keen to go to the USA to work for free when you could be working for money here? Be certain that the US Authorities will want you out of the country just before your visa expires, you will not just get a job and hide.

 

Think also that if you mess with the USA Visa system you will likely have problems should you ever want to work a cruise ship as several lines will cruise the US east, west or Caribbean coasts, or have staging posts in US territory.

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I'm adopted - and I've never been remotely bothered finding out anything about my genetic parents - but I do know my father was an American airman. So technically, I might be American? Does this mean I could hold a US passport? I'm not thinking of doing it, but anyone know if having one US parent would entitle me to dual nationality? If it did then I could work in the US without a visa - or am I totally wrong?
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