Mountain View is where Silicon Valley started — William Shockley opened the first silicon semiconductor laboratory here in 1956 — and it is still one of the valley's centers. Google's global headquarters, the Googleplex, is the city's largest employer, with around 23,000 people on campus; Alphabet is based here too, along with Intuit, Waymo, and Coursera, a large Microsoft campus, and NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, just across the city's edge. LinkedIn was founded in Mountain View in 2002. The immigration cases I handle for Mountain View come from people who live here — engineers, researchers, and founders who originate from places like Google, ex-employees opening new ventures.
For Employers and Startups in Mountain View
The March H-1B registration window comes every year — each registration at a wage level that now affects its odds in the wage-weighted selection, each needing a job description that is a genuine specialty occupation and not just a job title. Transfers for engineers moving between companies run all year, and for people who have been with the company for years, PERM is the path to a green card — a labour market test that has to be done properly, with a genuine position, minimum requirements, and real recruiting, or it fails on audit.
Mountain View is also a startup city in a way Cupertino is not. The downtown around Castro Street and the North Bayshore area hold a steady stream of young companies — AI hardware firms like Groq, and founders who originate from the big companies — ex-employees opening new ventures. For a founder or a key engineer at a startup, the work is more often O-1, or an L-1A for someone transferring from an office abroad. One thing I tell every Mountain View employer the same way: plan the case before the hire is urgent. The sooner we map it out, the better it goes.
For Founders in Mountain View
Mountain View founders often come out of Google or Intuit — an engineer leaves to build something of their own, and the immigration problem arrives with the company. 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 in Mountain View
Engineers and researchers at Google, and researchers at NASA Ames, 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 Mountain View 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 Mountain View, you are in the right place. I am an immigration lawyer and attorney serving Mountain View 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.