Aizada Marat

Alma just got a new office in Palo Alto and we want to share it with all immigrant founders and community builders! 🤍

It’s been more than 1 year since we started Alma, and our mission has always been to support immigrants—not just with visas, but with opportunities to connect and grow. We've hosted many events on GTM, fundraising, networking, and more.

Now, we’re taking it a step further. If you’re an immigrant founder or community builder looking to organize events, our space is yours! It’s a huge office that can host up to 50 people. Just reach out with a short note, and we’ll make it happen.

Why are we doing this?

Because immigration is just one part of your journey. At Alma, we’re not just immigration attorneys—we’re your partners on the path. And that path goes beyond visas. It’s about building, scaling, and thriving as an international founder in the U.S.

Consider this your home - feel free to drop by and say hello whenever :)

Let’s make it happen together. 💪

Big Immigration news: USCIS just released detailed guidance on the H-1B $100K fee. The fee doesn't apply to F-1 to H-1B change of status.

Who is subject to the $100,000 payment:

- New H-1B petitions filed at or after 12:01 a.m. EST on September 21, 2025
- Also applies if a petition requests consular notification, port of entry notification, or pre-flight inspection for an immigrant in the US
- Applies if you're ineligible for a change of status or an amendment or extension of stay (or if you depart the US before the adjudication of a change of status request)

The Proclamation does not apply to any previously issued and currently valid H-1B visas, or any petitions submitted prior to 12:01 a.m. EST on September 21, 2025.

The Proclamation does not prevent any holder of a current H-1B visa from traveling in and out of the US.

The Proclamation DOES NOT apply to a petition that is requesting an amendment, change of status, or extension of stay for someone who's inside the United States.

That means It doesn't apply to F-1 to H-1B change of status. And doesn't apply for travel after petition approved (which was a big question earlier) unless USCIS determines you're ineliglble for COS or you depart the US while it's pending.

You will also not be considered to be subject to the payment if you depart the United States and apply for a visa based on the approved petition and/or seek to reenter the United States on a current H-1B visa.

Regarding the payment:  Payment must be made prior to filing a petition with USCIS

Petitioners must submit proof that the payment has been scheduled from [pay dot gov] or evidence of an exception from the $100,000 payment from the Secretary of Homeland Security at the time of filing the H-1B petition.

No payment or exception proof = automatic denial.

This fundamentally changes how US companies approach international hiring.

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process.

O-1 visa approved for YC founder! 🇺🇸

Pankaj is from India, did his undergrad at IIT Kharagpur, and worked at Uber as an SDE before starting his own company.

A couple months back, he and his co-founder Tejas got accepted into Y Combinator’s Fall 2025 batch and like many immigrant founders, they faced an incredibly tight timeline to figure out immigration.

Every other firm they spoke to said it couldn’t be done.
We decided to take on the challenge.

First call: August 21
Visa approved: September 26

That’s five weeks from start to finish for an O-1 approval.

Now, they’re officially building Nivara (YC F25) — Nivara gives engineering and finance teams full transparency into AI model and agent usage. It tracks every LLM and agent call, across users, sessions, and workflows, to reveal real spend insights

Huge congratulations to Pankaj and Tejas 🎉

We’re proud Alma could play a small part in this journey. Time to build!

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process. Feel free to share your details on our website!

One of the largest H-1B employer in the US is reportedly laying off 30K employees starting Tuesday. If you're on an H-1B and affected by these layoffs, here's what you need to know:

You have exactly 60 calendar days from your termination date.

The clock starts ticking the day after your last day of work. Weekends and holidays count.

Few possible options during this grace period:

→ Switch to H-4 if married to an H-1B holder
→ File for F-1 student status
→ Find new employment and transfer your H-1B to the new employer
→ If you qualify, your employer or agent can file an O-1 petition (for individuals with extraordinary ability).

Start exploring your options immediately. The paperwork takes time, and USCIS doesn't care about your timeline.

I'm sharing Alma's list of startups that sponsor visas in the comments.

And If you're exploring work visa options like the O-1, EB-1, EB-2 NIW etc. - feel free to get in touch with us on Alma Immigration's website!

Last year, Alma was 3 people. Just me, Assel, and Shuo working out of coffee shops and a shared office space.

We've grown 10X since then (and hiring) and everyone is in the Bay Area together for the first time.

Watching everyone meet in person after months of Zoom calls has been incredible.

There's something different about being in the same room when you're building something meaningful together.

The energy is completely different.

Ideas flow faster. Decisions happen quicker. And honestly we're all having way more fun than I expected.

I love the random hallway conversations, the impromptu whiteboard sessions, and even just grabbing lunch together.

Remote work has its place (it might be unavoidable), but there's still magic in being in the same room when you're trying to build something from scratch.

Our office feels alive this week in a way that Slack never could.

This weekend the entire Alma team was in the bay area for our offsite in Santa Cruz!

Over the last year, we've grown really fast all because of the execution of this team. And honestly, the team deserved a good break!

we've accomplished a lot in the last one year:

800+ customers

95+ NPS

99%+ approval rates across visa types

Raised Seed funding of $5.5M

Moved into our new office in Palo Alto

But here's what I'm most proud of...

It's not the numbers (though they're great).

It's that we're actually solving the problem I set out to fix when I started this company.

Remember, I was that person who got wrong advice from an immigration lawyer I found on Google.

Now we have hundreds of professionals who don't have to go through that same nightmare.

The approval rates speak for themselves, but the real wins are in the DMs and emails from customers who tell us we helped them work on their startups or finally get the certainty they needed.

Building a company is hard. Building one in immigration law is even harder because you're dealing with people's lives and futures.

Having a team that gets that and executes with both speed and care makes all the difference.

Back to building now!

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process. Feel free to share your details on our website!

We just had our best month ever at Alma!

Feb 2025: 100 clients
June 2025: 300 clients
August 2025: 500 clients
October 2025: 750 clients

The growth came from three things (and these are extremely simple yet difficult to implement):

We ship cases in 2 weeks. Understanding and implementing urgency matters more than most people realize.

Transparency over mystique. Every client gets direct access to their attorney. No black box. Immigration is scary enough without wondering whats happening with your case.

Systems over heroics. We built processes that scale without compromising quality. Each case follows the same rigorous checklist whether its our 1st client or our 750th.

The crazy part? We're still maintaining our 99%+ approval rate across all visa categories.

Most people think you have to choose between growth and quality.

We've proven you can have both.

p.s. if you're exploring work visas and want an honest assessment of your profile, share your details on our website!

Huge win for H-4 holders (spouses of H-1B holders) today.

The Supreme Court declined to hear Save Jobs USA v. DHS, which means the H-4 EAD program survives another major challenge.

For those who don't know what this means:

If your spouse is on H-1B status AND has either an approved I-140 or an approved AC-21 106(a) extension, you can continue to apply for and renew your work authorization in the US.

The lawsuit has been going on since 2015. Save Jobs USA argued that DHS didn't have authority to grant these work permits and that it would hurt US workers.

This decision comes on the heels of broader challenges to the H-1B program itself.

When you force one spouse to give up their entire career because of visa restrictions, you're not just hurting that individual.

You're hurting the family's economic stability and the spouse's mental health.

That's not a choice anyone should have to make.

This decision provides some much needed stability for thousands of families.

With the recent news, many H-1B families are stressed. But for now, its one less thing these families have to worry about.

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process.

I just crossed 38K followers on LinkedIn. 9 months ago, I was at 6K.

Here's what actually moved the needle:

Posting 4-5 times per week consistently.

Most people post once and expect magic. Consistency beats perfection every time.

Optimize for shareability AND genuine value.

Ask yourself: "Would someone actually send this to a colleague or a friend?" If not, don't post it.

Timing doesn't matter as much as you think.

One of my recent posts hit 2,000 likes. Posted it at 6PM on a Friday when "everyone says" engagement is dead.

The real correlation I've noticed? Posts that have the highest "sends" go viral.

When someone finds your content interesting enough to send to their network, LinkedIn's algorithm takes notice.

Track your "sends" metric closely. The more valuable your content, the more people will send it to others.

Most people cant tell stories well. This is your biggest opportunity. Learn to structure your thoughts, build tension, and deliver insights that stick.

Don't oversell. Share content people would actually pay for, then give it away for free. Value first, always.

Having a niche matters. What are you known for? Going very broad in the early days rarely works.

Focus less on overall follower count. More on follower count within your ICP (you can see on a daily/weekly basis on who's following you - manual but worth it).

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process. Feel free to share your details on our website!

Yes, the new guidance on the $100k H-1B fee is a win. But not for everyone.

USCIS's clarification yesterday brought relief to many international students and current H-1B holders.

F-1 to H-1B change of status? No $100k fee.

H-1B extensions and amendments? No $100k fee.

Travel or visa stamping with an approved extension, amendment, change of status, or change of employer petition? Not a problem.

But here's what people aren't talking about: this guidance creates a harsh dividing line.

If you're a laid-off H-1B professional who left the country after your grace period, you're now stuck outside the system. Your new employer faces a $100,000 fee unless you can return on another visa and change status domestically.

And don’t assume you can just enter on a B-2 visa and change status to H-1B.  USCIS is increasingly scrutinizing B-2 to H-1B changes of status, focusing on whether the individual intended to work at the time of entry.

Here’s why: Entering on a visitor visa with a pre-existing plan to take up employment can be viewed as misrepresentation.

Similarly, using B-2 status as a “bridge” between two H-1B jobs raises red flags if the B-2 request appears to be a placeholder rather than a bona fide temporary stay.

If you're laid off, you have exactly 60 calendar days from your termination date.

A few possible options during this grace period:
- Switch to H-4 if married to an H-1B holder
- Find new employment and have them file on H-1B transfer petition for you
- If you qualify, your employer or agent can file an O-1A petition for individuals with extraordinary ability

Yes, the news could have been worse.

Some feared this would function as a broad travel ban affecting all new H-1B petitions. Others thought it wouldnt apply until next year's lottery cycle.

So while this guidance is a relief from the worst-case scenario, it's also a disappointment for many who hoped the fee wouldn't take effect until next spring.

P.S. If you’re exploring work visa options like O-1, EB-1, EB-2 NIW, or H-1B, Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process.

There's something powerful about celebrating your traditions while building new roots. Happy Diwali to everyone celebrating today!

When I moved to the U.S., I learned something:

your traditions don't shrink when you cross borders - they grow.

Lighting a diya thousands of miles away isn't just about memory — it's an act of continuity.

It's how heritage evolves and finds new life in unfamiliar places.

And in those quiet moments of celebration — missing family, cooking the same sweets, teaching your friends what it all means — you realize something simple but profound:

you're not just carrying culture forward, you're adding to it.

Your stories, your food, your festivals — they make this country richer.

Because the beauty of America has always been that there isn't one version of home — there are millions.

Immigration doesn't just move people. It moves entire cultures, stories, and ways of seeing the world.

May the light you carry continue to grow wherever you go.

We just proved this YC founder wrong.

Last month, we worked with a YC founder who got into the F25 batch (which started in October). Every other law firm had rejected the case.

After evaluating his profile, we decided to take on the challenge. He had his first call with us on Aug 21. And got approved on Sept 26.

That's 5 weeks to get an O-1 visa approved. Start to finish.

Copying the exact email from Sept 26:

"Every other immigration team we spoke to either didn't want to look at our profile because we were so early, or wouldn't commit to the incredibly short timeline we were on."

This happens more than you'd think. A lot of times immigrant founders are on other statuses like H-1B, F-1 etc.

YC founders get accepted with tight timelines. Usually with only 2 months to figure out immigration while they're already building.

We specialize in exactly these situations. We file in 2 weeks.

If you're a founder dealing with tight immigration timelines, reach out. Alma can assess your profile and guide you through the process.