Say you met this person on vacation and fell in love with him or her and wonder how easy it would be to move to the U.S. to live here and see if the two of you can make it together. Or you heard about Silicon Valley and think you want to work for the next big start up. Or you heard that the North Carolina triangle is the next big thing.

Now you think about living and working in the U.S. You have heard it’s difficult to get a work permit. You heard different opinions about the same issue. So who is right? Where can you get the right info? Do you need a lawyer? Well, it’s a tricky subject. Because it all depends… on a variety of different variables. Your situation is probably different from the person who’s advice you heard, so always be careful when you digest it. In general, these laws change frequently or the authorities apply them differently, so it’s always good to check with a lawyer or paralegal to see what the latest status is.

In general, it always helps when you are informed yourself. Not that you want to do everything yourself, but you want to know where you are in the process and what other option you have. Say you first come here with your 90-day visitor visa waiver program (VWP), if you are able to get it. And after 90 days you still think he or she is the one, you fell in love with the country, and you want to live here. There are many different visa and immigration options, and I won’t cover them here. But to get you started, here is my initial list of resources I would recommend to you to go through:

Read the Book U.S. Immigration Made Easy. This book is a comprehensive overview of what your options are. You will quickly see what could fit and what not and what the effort and requirements are. I know it’s the age of the Internet, but this book will serve you well throughout your later planning when you have to get back to get more details as well. US$25-35 well spend, in my opinion.

Check out the Shusterman website for information in real-time. The Shusterman website is full of info about all the different immigration categories and visa types. And mostly in plain English, not legal terms. While you are there, don’t forget to sign-up for the free Shusterman electronic newsletter to keep you informed. There is a reason why they have more than 55,000 persons in more than 150 countries subscribed.

Go directly to the source. The U.S. Department of State has all the info on the web as well. The site is comprehensive and will help you often to separate facts from fiction you might hear elsewhere. http://travel.state.gov. There are the guys that are setting the rules. Another one is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This is the department that deals with all the processes and your applications, and they provide a ton of info for free as well.

Since you are thinking about living and working here, might as well try to get the best status (Green Card) the easiest way. Sign-up for free for the green card lottery, which you can do once a year in the late fall. Even if you win it will take at least another year, more like 1  1/2, but since it’s free don’t miss out on this opportunity, and DON’T waste your money on “preparation” services they sell all over the Internet. All this info you need is here, and often foreign embassies have this info in the local language. So check out the U.S. consulate in your home country!

If you are a student, or think about becoming one and consider the option of studying in the U.S., check out the university websites. Many larger universities have special offices for international programs and provide comprehensive overviews of student visas and related options. Here are some samples from Berkeley, the University of Maryland, and San Francisco State University. Google you favorite one and see what they have on the web.

For non-students, if you want to get an overview of how long things might take, check out trackitt.com to see how long various employment based options are taking.

There is also some nice background reading on Wikipedia with many cross links to further explanations. You found the right post. Now get yourself some coffee, you can easily spend the next few hours checking all these links. Hope that gets you started, and good luck with your endeavor.