Thursday morning, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick proposed a new bill that, if passed, would ban non-competes and create a Global Entrepreneur in Residence program to allow international students to stay in Boston post-graduation to work at or on a startup. The latter clause is designed to take advantage of a loophole in the federal immigration law and boost the number of H-1B visas allotted to the State.
“It’s super smart and a good way to hack the system,” docTrackr Co-founder and CEO Clement Cazalot told BostInno. As a French citizen, Cazalot had to overcome numerous obstacles to acquire his own L-1A visa, a classification that “enables a U.S. employer to transfer an executive or manager from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the United States.” He’s also now slamming into a similar bureaucratic roadblock trying to bring foreign docTrackr employees into the U.S. under the H-1B classification.
After starting docTrackr in Paris, Cazalot moved to Boston when the startup was accepted into Techstars’ program in 2012. At times, he was forced to travel back and forth from docTrackr’s headquarters in Paris to Boston. The accelerator does its part in giving innovators the information and support they needed to apply for visas, but the accelerator “can’t actually get them for you,” said Cazalot. (As Techstars' cofounder and president David Brown told BostInno via email, "We have some terrific legal sponsors that help out. Once teams are accepted, we refer them to these sponsors.") Ultimately, Cazalot's foreign founders were on their own.
Being in limbo with visas puts immigrant founders in a "completely unstable and impractical" situation, Cazalot said--having to travel to and from a stateside headquarters set up for U.S. co-founders and early employees.
Such constant travel can be “very expensive,” Cazalot said--even more so for foreign entrepreneurs based in Asia or Eastern Europe.
In Cazalot's case, his ability to get a visa depended on his startup getting funded. The reason being? That it meant the founder had an official statement to prove that docTrackr was a credible company, and could use the money to pay for legal fees associated with applying for the visa and making sure the company’s affairs were in order for said application. That process can cost people anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000, explained Cazalot.
Fortunately, funding came through. In October 2012, docTrackr raised a seed round of $2 million led by Atlas Venture’s Chris Lynch and Polaris Partners, along with Common Angels.
Now, however, Cazalot and docTrackr are facing yet another hurdle around H-1B visas. The company is currently trying to hire two developers in South America. Cazalot said those employees may be able to start by this October. Companies starting the process now will have to wait until at least October, 2015, to bring in their H-1B hires. “Regardless of country of origin, regardless of revenue, regardless of payroll — that’s just how the system works,” Cazalot said.
While the Global EIR program is a strong step in the right direction, there’s still a long way to go toward simplifying the process of obtaining H-1B visas – for bright and determined foreign workers temporarily within the U.S., and those outside of the States and looking to contribute to the innovation in ventures born in Boston, and beyond.
Image via NY Habitat
Editor's note: This story was changed after publication to clarify the general nature of Cazalot's comments. They were not intended in reference to any specific case. Also, an earlier version of the story mis-stated the potential date Doctrackr's two H-1B employees can come to the U.S. It is October, 2014.
