Hi All
I am currently working in a small silicon valley startup company on an H1B and expecting to receive my PPR/CoPR this year. The official end date shown in the PR web portal is July 4th, but I am sure it is going to take longer due to the pandemic. Due to the well-known H1B issues, I am considering talking to my employer and asking them whether they are willing to let me work from Canada if I want to move there later this year. The thing is, I am learning a lot in this company and would very much like to continue working for them after moving to Canada.
For context, my boss had himself brought up the US immigration issue around 1.5 years ago and asked me what he could do to retain me in case I am dissatisfied with US immigration issues. He said he did not want to lose me to another employer due to immigration concerns. I told him I would seriously consider moving to Canada (at that time, I had not started the Canada PR process). He said he will look into the possibility of opening a company office in Canada. However, after 2 months, things changed for the company drastically and Canada office was no longer on the company road map. When I asked him about it again, he said they do not want to open an office in Canada but are OK if I want to move to Canada and work remotely from there (we did not discuss details of how exactly that will be arranged - through PEO, independent contracting, etc). I did not pursue this topic any further.
However, I am not sure if the timing of talking about it right now makes sense. There are some complicated things going on. The thing is - I myself am not sure if we would want to move to Canada by end of this year. My wife is on F1-OPT hunting for a job in US. If she does not find one by August, she has to convert to H4 visa. Due to pandemic, we have very low hope left that she will find a job. She has been trying to find a job since July 2019 and the pandemic will only make it harder. In that case, we would love to move to Canada once the CoPR comes through. If she finds a job, then we are considering staying in US for at least 2 more years.
My intuition is that probably there is nothing to gain by talking about it as I myself am not sure what is going to be my wife’s work situation after August. So talking about it may put my current job at risk (I do not have any offer from any other company and have not started interviewing anywhere). But the other thought I had in mind is that it is clear my boss wants to retain me and probably would love to know what concrete action he can take to retain me and put my immigration concerns at ease. If he is willing to relocate me to Canada, I get a lot of mental peace and stability in my mind that we can move to Canada immediately post August (or whenever PR comes through).
I am confused. Just wanted to run it by people who may have gone through similar concerns or have advice in general.
Any thoughts? @panditji @am1 @avj @mrandmrs @vignesh.pr @usa2can @ntn