Sunnyvale is the city at the center of Silicon Valley in the most literal sense. Google is its largest employer, with more than 14,000 people here; Apple has a large campus here too, and Amazon as well. LinkedIn is headquartered here, and so is Intuitive Surgical, the company behind the da Vinci surgical robot. Juniper Networks and Fortinet are based here, and Lockheed Martin Space builds satellites a short drive from Moffett Field, where NASA Ames Research Center sits just over the city line. Sunnyvale is also where the video game industry was born — Atari was headquartered here in the 1970s. The immigration cases I handle for people in Sunnyvale come from people who live here and work across the Valley — people moving between the big companies, and people who left to found their own.
For Employers and Startups in Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale is home to engineers at Google, Apple, and Amazon campuses; engineers at LinkedIn, Intuitive Surgical, Juniper Networks, and Fortinet; and aerospace and defense engineers at Lockheed Martin Space. 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 Sunnyvale office. One thing I tell every Sunnyvale 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 Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale is a founders' city in a quiet way — fewer headlines than Palo Alto, but plenty of engineers leaving big companies to build 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 Sunnyvale
Intuitive Surgical's robotics teams, the aerospace engineers at Lockheed Martin Space, and the researchers at NASA Ames just over the city line 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 Sunnyvale 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 Sunnyvale, you are in the right place. I am an immigration lawyer and attorney serving Sunnyvale 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.