A friend of mine is trying to migrate to the states,and I was wondering if there is a way of finding out which companies have Department of Labour authorisation to employ migrant workers,or will we have to phone each company to ask?
Thanks in advance’
Jools
I was informed the best way for a green card in to the USA was to become resident of Canada,The USA offer lottery Visas to Canadians.Willis Brazelot and VRV global assist in immigration to Candada for long distance truck drivers,who then work from Candada with loads to and from the USA.When my J1 student visa exchange expired,i was succesful in finding a job,working on steel fixing with construction of high rise buildings in the Broward area of Florida,and a job in a marina,working on yachts.In the paper,for the job ad,both employers only asked if i had tools,and said get some.Some English guys i shared a house with,never left the USA,with expired visas.They met and married American ladies,and got a green card.To date,still there and sucessful in business.
What a load of total poop 
If your visa or visa waiver expires now they come and get you, they will search high and low till they find you and then deport you.
Since the new laws have been introduced these is no chance of just staying and hiding, eventually you will be discovered, locked up for some time, then deported for a minimum of 10 years 
Been there, done that, got arrested by INS once at the Canadian border and because my waiver although lost had another 3 days showing on the INS computer I was given 3 days to get out or they would come looking for me. I left still legal, returned at a later date and married my wife.
It just aint worth the risk.
I doubt that any reputable firm would employ you without a social security number & you can’t get one of them without a green card, pretty much the only way in is to marry an American & even then, post 9/11, the checks are very thorough so a marriage of convienience wouldn’t stand up to the scrutiny it would attract.
Also the USA is suffering from the recession quite badly, there is a lot less freight to be moved & jobs are not as freely available as they have been in recent years, most companies have a hiring freeze & those that are hiring have the pick of the experienced drivers so a rookie Brit won’t stand a dog’s chance.
Canada is a different story, but there you have to be careful that the job you get is in fact worth having, many of us Brits over here already have moved on from our first jobs as they left a lot to be desired, think of them as stepping stones to a proper job, after all, if they were any good they would have no trouble filling the jobs with Canadians, that said there are good jobs around & if you want to drive trucks in the USA then that’s your best option, the money may be a little less up north, but the free healthcare & other benefits soon make up the difference & most Canadian firms run better equipment than the Americans & the distance from Canada to the Eastern Seaboard, where pretty much everything goes is 12-1500miles & as you’re paid by the mile it ensures you get 12000+miles per month & therefore a decent wage.
Even though my big Peterbilt is parked for the weekend & I’m writing this from a hotel in North Carolina & it’s 36c it’s no holiday, so if you’re expecting Smokey & the Bandit style shennanigans then you’re in for a shock 
Thanks very much for the replies,I shall pass those on.
Jools
I’ve a SS number and I don’t have a green card 
Big Truck:
I’ve a SS number and I don’t have a green card
How? Is it the Irish connection?
Funny thing with the yanks is that they wont allow their main allies in, but the place is full of Somalians, Russians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cubans & ■■■■■■■■ etc & to the best of my knowledge they’ve been to war with most of them in the recent past!
) 
newmercman:
Big Truck:
I’ve a SS number and I don’t have a green cardHow? Is it the Irish connection?
Funny thing with the yanks is that they wont allow their main allies in, but the place is full of Somalians, Russians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cubans & [zb] etc & to the best of my knowledge they’ve been to war with most of them in the recent past!
No,
I went over to do a USA harvest run in 2002 and got SS number 3 days after arriving and had my full class A CDL(out of date now ) with Hazmat/tanks/doubles and triples passed 2 days after that
To say it was a joke of a theory and practical test would be an understatement 
How does that work then?
Can you get residency from it or is it just a temporary thing?
newmercman:
How does that work then?Can you get residency from it or is it just a temporary thing?
No I don’t think so but I know quite a few guys who go over to do the harvest run every year from approx April to November on the same H2A temp work visa as they just keep getting a new one.
I reckon if I went over and went into any DOT office I could just take another theory test and renew my CDL.
One of my mates who went with me in 2002 had an old CDL from working for 6 months in 1994 for MS carriers/Ro-Cor and he was just able to get it renewed and started driving machinery down the road that afternoon 
I have always said on the forums the best way to see if your could hack trucking in NA was to go on a 6/8 months harvest run.
I run out of Winnipeg & spend a lot of time in the Prairies so I can imagine the harvest run is no holiday, I take it you go from farm to farm with a harvester & a fleet of grain buckets & run it into railheads or elevators?
My present company still have a huge farm & used to run grain, but when they went to super Bs in Canada they switched to reefer work as they didn’t want to haul twice as much for the same money, but they say that harvest time is crazy.
I wonder if my Canadian class 1 is transferable, after all the US DOT let me drive a big truck on their roads, it may be an idea to jump across the border into the Dakotas for the season & get a few quid in the bank then come back to Canada & pick up where I left off, never hurts to have options 
So are you thinking of doing it again?
Pat Hasler:
What a load of total poopIf your visa or visa waiver expires now they come and get you, they will search high and low till they find you and then deport you.
Since the new laws have been introduced these is no chance of just staying and hiding, eventually you will be discovered, locked up for some time, then deported for a minimum of 10 years
Been there, done that, got arrested by INS once at the Canadian border and because my waiver although lost had another 3 days showing on the INS computer I was given 3 days to get out or they would come looking for me. I left still legal, returned at a later date and married my wife.
It just aint worth the risk.
As proof of this a friend of mine recently got a pull in Southern Texas & stupidly he had allowed his I-94 (visa waiver) to expire, he was immediately arrested as an illegal immigrant & sent to the State Penitentiary, until the lawyers got involved he was looking at a prison term & then deportation back to England, he may be a Canadian resident but is still a British citizen, luckily it all got sorted, but it underlines what Pat has said, now that Homeland Security are in charge of the borders there is no messing (with a capital F) about.
newmercman:
I run out of Winnipeg & spend a lot of time in the Prairies so I can imagine the harvest run is no holiday, I take it you go from farm to farm with a harvester & a fleet of grain buckets & run it into railheads or elevators?My present company still have a huge farm & used to run grain, but when they went to super Bs in Canada they switched to reefer work as they didn’t want to haul twice as much for the same money, but they say that harvest time is crazy.
I wonder if my Canadian class 1 is transferable, after all the US DOT let me drive a big truck on their roads, it may be an idea to jump across the border into the Dakotas for the season & get a few quid in the bank then come back to Canada & pick up where I left off, never hurts to have options
So are you thinking of doing it again?
I will only be allowed to do it again when I retire or get divorced 
Its no holiday thats for sure,you sometimes went to bed at night after finishing and having a shower and got up for work the next morning and your hair was still wet
We harvested all over the mid-west states from Texas to ND with an outfit of 24 brand new JD combines and a fleet of “well used” trucks ( some custom cutters have a really nice fleet of trucks) and you usually were in one place for 2/4 weeks before packing up and moving on, just like a circus.
The money was OK and the craic was great but I did it more for the experience than to make my fortune.
If you want to make money ND is the place to go for the potato/beet harvest during Sept/Oct,they harvest thousands of acres of beets here 24/7 hauling to massive beet stations and it is run like a huge military operation and is a sight to behold.
The Marine Corps boys take their leave during this time and go to ND to drive truck 24/7 for 6/8 weeks and make plenty of $$$$$.
I once watched 16 beet harvesters lifting beets at 1am with a fleet of trucks running along the side of them and four 500hp Case Quad-tracks sitting at the side of the field with special towing arms fitted to pull the trucks along if things got “sticky”.
There were then four other Case quad-tracks fitted with giant disc harrows used to level in the field ruts,the 640 acre “full section” field was lit up like a Xmas tree
I’ve seen the beet trucks running up & down I-29, they’re all gone now though as the beet piles have all been used up.
newmercman:
I’ve seen the beet trucks running up & down I-29, they’re all gone now though as the beet piles have all been used up.
Come end of Sept early Oct they will be flying about again
Here you go Big Truck, I saw these beauties in Billings, MT last week.
Tidy looking outfits, I bet they earn their corn 
Yes,
that is a nice outfit alright and I suppose the wheat is starting to get ready in Montana around now or maybe they have just stopped off before heading on South.
Newmercman,
you’ll be trading in the reefer for a hopper bottom before long
getting back to an earlier post … You can have a ss number without a green card but every company has to vairify that you are legally allowed to work in the USA before employing you.
Hey Pat, have you ever seen the SS card with “Not permitted to work” written on it?
I met a driver in Meer truckstop a few years ago. He had been living in the US and had been driving busses and trucks, but he had a SS card which was franked like that. He said that there were people who employed drivers with those cards but that they were not usually the better firms, and I would have thought you would be begging for trouble if you were working in that situation.
It would only take one scale operator to have his doubts, wouldn’t it?
Sometimes the say “Not permitted to work unless supported by relevant Visa” or similar on them