Can I switch from a tourist visa to a work visa while in the U.S.?

It’s possible through a change of status with USCIS, but officers may question your original intent when entering. Consular processing is often safer.

How do layoffs affect a PERM case?

Layoffs in the same or similar occupation within the previous six months prevent the employer from starting recruitment or filing PERM. During the layoff window, the employer can still: define the job description and requirements, and request the prevailing wage determination (PWD). But the employer cannot activate the PERM process — meaning no recruitment and no ETA-9089 filing — until the cooling-off period has passed. Once that period ends, the PERM process may proceed normally.

Can I switch employers while on an O-1 visa?

Yes. You can change employers, but in most cases the new employer must file a new petition before you can begin working with them.The only exception is for O-1B visas filed through a U.S. agent—in those cases, you may switch or add employers without needing to file a new petition.

Can premium processing speed up my H-4 EAD?

Premium processing isn't the direct lever for the H-4 EAD itself, but it can help indirectly. Because the EAD can't be approved until your H-4 status is, premium processing your spouse's Form I-129 petition or your Form I-539 status extension can move those approvals along and clear the way for the EAD sooner.

What's the difference between the 180-day rule and the Substantial Presence Test?

The "180 day rule" is an informal immigration guideline suggesting B1/B2 visitors shouldn't spend more than roughly 180 days per year in the U.S. to avoid CBP scrutiny. The Substantial Presence Test is a separate IRS tax formula that determines whether you've spent enough time in the U.S. to be taxed as a resident.They serve different purposes: one affects your ability to enter the country, the other affects your tax obligations.

Should we replace immigration lawyers or catalyze their knowledge?

I'm still convinced that execution is more important than strategy. However, some strategic decisions can make or break your business.

One key decision is choosing the industry you want to enter. Many years ago at Kellogg, I read a statistic that stuck with me: 50% of a business's success depends on the industry you choose.

The next crucial decision is your business plan and positioning. Even though our team at Tukki chose to work in immigration, we could have gone in different directions, like selling software to lawyers or automating the immigration process to replace lawyers. Each option would lead to very different business models, clients, company types, required skills, and economic implications.

I’m asked a lot why we chose to work with lawyers instead of running other business model options. I’ll answer that in this article.

Why not sell to lawyers?

To make a significant impact in the industry, we need to address the biggest pain points, which do not lie with the lawyers, but with the immigrants.

After interviewing dozens of lawyers and immigrants, it became clear that immigrants face the most challenges: inefficient processes, lack of visibility, slow responses, stress, and uncertainty. While lawyers could benefit from better technology, we believed we could make a bigger impact by working directly with immigrants.

Additionally, we think that the pain points that immigrants currently experienced can't be solved by software alone. It requires a combination of software and operations. Great lawyers are part of the operations piece, but bringing in business best practices from other industries makes a huge difference for the immigration experience and ease of process for lawyers.

Why not replace lawyers?

Involving immigration lawyers from the start is essential to providing the best service to immigrants — we’ve learned this from personal experience. Immigration law is complex and rarely clear-cut. You need the expertise and judgment of an experienced lawyer. While many steps in the process can be automated, there are moments where a lawyer's input is crucial, such as:

The initial strategy meeting to shape the case
To address legal questions that arise during the process
The final review and legal arguments

Additionally, obtaining a visa or a green card is a life-changing event; immigrants want a team they can rely on, someone to chat with and answer their questions. Our vision of the best immigration experience is the opposite of a self-service, impersonal experience with an AI. We believe in providing a warm, supportive environment with real human interaction.

Why not simply be lawyers?

People often ask, "If you still have lawyers on your team, why should I work with Tukki instead of going directly to a lawyer?"

We combine the best of both worlds: expert knowledge from lawyers and a highly efficient, customer-focused process enabled by our technology.

Neither can deliver the best experience to immigrants alone; you need both.

I admit, this approach didn't come without its challenges! It’s far more complicated to acquire customers, service them, get great lawyers, manage operations end-to-end, and build a great product than just focus on one section of the journey. Scaling is also much easier when you're building a B2B SaaS solution compared to managing operations. That's why, since day one, Tukki has obsessively focused on streamlining operations with technology to become exponentially more efficient and scalable than the status quo.

If you want to truly reinvent an industry, you need to go all in, and that's what we signed up for.

To tap into that expert knowledge from lawyers and efficient, customer-focused process enabled by our technology, start with our Visa Match tool, and find out what your best options for US immigration are.