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The U.S. does not currently offer a "digital nomad" visa. So even if a visitor to the U.S. is working remotely for a company located abroad, servicing customers who are all abroad, and depositing the visitor's pay to a foreign bank account in the foreign currency, U.S. Customs & Border Protection still considers such work to be "U.S. employment". [Persons with H-4 visas, take note of that!] If the visitor in the above example entered with a visa that does not authorize U.S. employment, the visitor is technically removable from the United States. Additionally, the visitor may experience difficulties entering the U.S. on a later visit if CBP unearths the work as a digital nomad while in the U.S. For some visitors, unauthorized employment in the U.S. has led U.S. consulates to impose lifetime bars on receiving future U.S. visas. What's worse is that the ability to appeal those bars to the State Department in Washington D.C. was significantly curtailed within the past year. This means that working illegally in the U.S. as a digital nomad could lead you to suddenly find yourself, overnight, unable to return to the U.S. ever again. If you're going to engage in this type of risky activity as a visitor, speak to a U.S. immigration lawyer. Once you're denied a visa by a U.S. consulate, you may not find an immigration lawyer willing to take your case as the odds of prevailing against the consulate on such issues are slim to none.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
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