San Jose is the largest city in Silicon Valley and its capital in every sense that matters: more than 6,600 technology companies employ more than 250,000 people here. Cisco Systems, Adobe, eBay, PayPal, and Zoom are headquartered in the city. Cadence Design Systems, Western Digital, and Samsung Semiconductor run major operations here, and the semiconductor industry that built the valley still does much of its work in San Jose and the surrounding Santa Clara County. San Jose State University, the West Coast's oldest public university, supplies a steady stream of engineering and computer science graduates to those employers. The immigration work I do for San Jose clients is volume work done carefully: H-1B registrations by the dozen, PERM cases for long-serving employees, and green cards for engineers and researchers who have built their careers here.
For Employers in San Jose
The March H-1B registration window comes every year for San Jose’s large employers — Cisco, Adobe, eBay, PayPal, Zoom — 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, extensions, and amendments run all year. And for employees 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. If you are an HR team in San Jose managing a large foreign national population, the work is planning: registrations in March, PERM cases started early enough to finish before a visa runs out, and I-9 compliance kept current. I have done this work for companies of every size, and the discipline is the same at every size.
For Semiconductor and Hardware Engineers
San Jose is still a hardware city. The semiconductor engineers, chip designers, and systems engineers who work here — at Cadence, at Samsung Semiconductor, at Western Digital, and at the smaller design firms around them — have a different profile from the software engineers of the Peninsula: specialised knowledge, patents, and experience that is hard to hire for. That profile matters for immigration. A hardware engineer with a strong patent record and publications may be an EB-1A candidate; an engineer whose work advances semiconductor design may be an EB-2 NIW candidate under Dhanasar. The O-1 fits engineers with recognised achievements who need to move without waiting for the H-1B lottery. In every case, I start from the record — patents, papers, citations, and what other people in the field say about the work — and match it to the category it actually fits.
For San Jose State Graduates and International Students
San Jose State University is one of the largest suppliers of engineering talent in the valley, and its international students face the same sequence every year: F-1, OPT, STEM OPT, and then the question of what comes next. The H-1B is the usual next step, but the registration is wage-weighted now and there are no guarantees, so the planning has to start before OPT runs out. Some SJSU graduates go on to O-1A on the strength of work done early in their careers; some go on to employer-sponsored green cards. What I tell every student is the same: know your timeline, know when your current status ends, and do not leave the next step until the last month. If you are a San Jose State student or graduate working out how to stay and build a career here, tell me your status, your degree, and your employer, and I will tell you which paths are real.
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 San Jose cases the same way I handle cases anywhere in the United States. San Jose is the city where most of my clients' employers are, and I know the companies, the industries, and the cases that usually come out of them.
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 San Jose, you are in the right place. I am an immigration lawyer and attorney serving San Jose 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.