Redwood City sits midway between San Francisco and San Jose, on the Peninsula, and it is the county seat of San Mateo County. Oracle's Redwood Shores campus is the city's largest employer; Electronic Arts is headquartered in Redwood Shores, and so is Box. Informatica and Equinix have large offices here, and Guardant Health anchors a growing biotech presence. Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Kaiser Permanente are major employers too, and the Caltrain line runs straight through a downtown that has become one of the liveliest on the Peninsula. The immigration cases I handle for people in Redwood City come from people who live here and work across the Peninsula.
For Employers and Startups in Redwood City
Redwood City is home to engineers at Oracle, Electronic Arts, Box, Informatica, and Equinix; biotech people at Guardant Health; and physicians and researchers at Stanford Hospital and Kaiser Permanente. 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 Redwood City office. One thing I tell every Redwood City 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 Redwood City
Redwood City is a founders' city too — enterprise software, gaming, and biotech startups cluster here, drawn by the same employers their founders came from. 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 Redwood City
Guardant Health's liquid-biopsy work, the physicians and researchers at Stanford Hospital, and the biotech teams around Redwood Shores 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 Redwood City 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 Redwood City, you are in the right place. I am an immigration lawyer and attorney serving Redwood City 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.