20-04-2009 by Bryan Palmer
Large US banks such as JP Morgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are getting around the new US immigration restrictions by offering offshore jobs to new foreign recruits.
Barack Obama introduced restrictions on the banks that had recently received bail-outs funded with public money. The restrictions prevent them from recruiting non-US workers to work in the US on temporary work visas (H-1B) before they can prove that they have exhausted their options to recruit a US citizen for the roles. However, the banks are concerned that these protectionist measures prevent them from recruiting talent from the pool of foreign students studying in the US.
As a result, these banks are offering foreign students jobs, but are giving them the chance to do the jobs in other countries, working out of other global financial centres such as London and Hong Kong.
A specialist immigration lawyer, Allen Erenbaum, explains, "there are no U.S. immigration restrictions on people working outside the U.S., so anyone who wants to can have folks work in London versus New York."
