Fremont is the fourth-largest city in the Bay Area, with about 230,000 people, and the closest East Bay city to Silicon Valley. The Tesla Fremont Factory is the city's largest employer, with more than 20,000 people building cars in South Fremont. Lam Research is headquartered here, and Western Digital, Seagate, and Thermo Fisher Scientific have large operations in the Warm Springs Innovation District, along with Zoox and a growing cluster of life sciences companies. BART runs through the city, and Mission San Jose's schools draw families from around the world. The immigration cases I handle for people in Fremont come from people who live here — people moving between the factory and the semiconductor companies, and families who settled here for the schools and the commute.
For Employers and Startups in Fremont
Fremont is home to engineers at the Tesla factory; semiconductor-equipment engineers at Lam Research; storage engineers at Western Digital and Seagate; and life sciences people at Thermo Fisher Scientific. The immigration questions are different at each size, but the pattern is the same: a hire who needs to start, a founder who needs to work for the company they built, or a researcher whose visa depends on a project continuing.
For larger teams, that usually means H-1B registrations in the March window, transfers for engineers moving between companies, and PERM cases for employees who have been with the company long enough to start the green card process. For startups, the work is more often O-1 for a founder or a key engineer, or an L-1A for a founder expanding a company from abroad into a Fremont office. One thing I tell every Fremont employer the same way: plan the case before the hire is urgent. The sooner we map it out, the better it goes.
For Founders Near Fremont
Fremont is a hardware founders' city — engineers leaving the factory and the chip companies to build electric-vehicle, battery, and semiconductor startups of their own. If you are a founder, your immigration status and your company are the same problem. Owning shares in a U.S. company, or investing in one, is not permission to work for it. Coding, hiring, selling, and running the company day to day is work — even unpaid — and doing it without work authorization can damage future visas and green cards. The path that fits depends on the founder: O-1A for a founder with a strong record of achievement, E-2 for a founder from a treaty country investing in the company, L-1A for a founder expanding an existing foreign company, or EB-5 for investment plus job creation toward a green card. Which one fits is decided on the facts, not on which one sounds fastest.
For Researchers and Scientists Near Fremont
The semiconductor process engineers and manufacturing researchers at Lam Research, Western Digital, and the Warm Springs companies produce exactly the kind of record that EB-1A and EB-2 NIW cases are built on: patents, published work, citations, and contributions other people in the field rely on. Researchers here often come to me after an H-1B has carried them for a few years and they are ready to look at a green card they can file themselves. The test is not whether the work is impressive in the abstract — it is whether the evidence meets the specific criteria, and whether the record as a whole shows the person is among the small percentage at the top of the field, or that their work is in the national interest under Dhanasar. I look at the actual record before saying either is the right case.
How a Case Proceeds
Every case starts the same way: you tell me what you are working on, through the contact form, and I reply in writing, focusing on the issues involved. If it looks like a case I can take on, we map out the path — which category, what evidence is needed, and what the timing looks like — before anything is filed. Immigration is a federal practice, so I handle Fremont cases the same way I handle cases anywhere in the United States: the same rules, the same forms, the same care. Being based in Menlo Park means I know the employers, the investors, and the research institutions my clients work for, and I know what their cases usually turn on.
Why a Named Principal Matters
When a company hires an immigration lawyer, it is usually buying a name it cannot see and a team it will never meet. Here you deal with me directly — Paul M. Heller, principal and founder, 30+ years in practice. I have advised designated school officials at Stanford and UC Berkeley, and I have represented companies and the individuals they hire, from first registration through green card. The advice is mine, and so is the responsibility for it.
This firm is not an H-1B mill, and it never has been. I don't crunch out cookie-cutter cases for large companies — the same petition, copied a hundred times. I work with large companies too, but every case is built around the person in it: their record, their history, their timing. Each matter is given individual attention. These days, USCIS scrutinizes every single matter to the utmost degree — and that is exactly where this way of working pays off: a case built around the person, with the record to support it, holds up under that scrutiny.
If you came here looking for an immigration attorney in Fremont, you are in the right place. I am an immigration lawyer and attorney serving Fremont and the surrounding Bay Area, and every case below is the work I actually do here.
Your Attorney
I am Paul M. Heller, Esq. — Principal Attorney & Founder, Heller Immigration Law Group, with 30+ years practicing U.S. immigration law in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, and throughout the United States. Immigration is a federal practice. Designated School Officials at Stanford & UC Berkeley have turned to me for advice, as stated on the firm homepage.
Service Area and Replies
I am based in Menlo Park, CA — I reply in writing, and I handle cases throughout the U.S. because immigration is federal.
Other cities served: Menlo Park, Palo Alto, San Francisco, San Jose, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Redwood City, Fremont, San Mateo, Milpitas, Los Angeles.
Tell me what you are working on and I will reply in writing, focusing on the issues involved. No phone number and no street address are published on this site.
General information, not legal advice. Requirements and processing change; we confirm current rules for your case.