When Does a Startup Need an Immigration Function?

Getting an H-1B visa for a worker can take almost a year. PERM labor certification, the first step toward a Green Card for most sponsored employees, now takes an average of more than 500 days for the Labor Department to process. Any missed deadlines during these processes can also mean an employee’s work permit runs out, and you risk losing them.

Companies that want to scale quickly should build an immigration function before encountering delays like this. Even if you don’t have enough cases to justify a full-time immigration role, an in-house immigration function can still exist early in the life of a startup. 

You also don’t need to own the whole function yourself. Some of it can live inside your company, with some of it left to an outside immigration attorney.

What counts as an immigration function?

An immigration function means four things have a home inside your company:

1. A named person who is in charge of immigration, even if it’s not their whole job.
2. A written policy that says who you’re willing to sponsor, who pays for what, and how early you begin an employee’s Green Card process.
3. Deadline tracking for every work visa, extension, and filing date.
4. An immigration attorney, often outside counsel, who handles the filings and the strategy.

What are the signs you need an immigration function?

Four signals show it’s time to build an immigration function.

Signal 1: A missed deadline could cost you a person

The clearest trigger for starting an internal immigration function is when a filing deadline is tied to keeping an employee. Work authorization runs on hard deadlines. For example, F-1 visa OPT lasts 12 months, with a possible 24-month STEM extension. H-1B typically caps out at six years, with a renewal after the first three years.

If you miss the window to extend or change status, the person may lose the right to work. You need someone to own tracking that date, planning the correct filing, and making sure it gets done.

Signal 2: A spreadsheet is no longer enough

A spreadsheet can work when you’re tracking a handful of dates for a few employees. But once your sponsored population grows, it can start to get out of hand. One wrong cell can put someone’s status at risk.

Here are some of the things you need to track:

• Work permit (EAD) expiration, including OPT and STEM OPT dates
• H-1B status expiration (the current approval’s end date)
• H-1B six-year cap (separate from a one-year renewal)
• Visa stamp validity, which affects an employee’s ability to re-enter the U.S. after travel 
• Status extension and change-of-status filing windows
• Green Card priority dates

A dedicated owner can handle moving off spreadsheets and onto a dedicated immigration case-management software. Another option is to hand the case tracking, deadline monitoring, and filing prep over to an immigration law firm.

Signal 3: You need a Green Card strategy

When you have employees you want to keep for the long term, you need a Green Card strategy. Because PERM now averages more than 500 days, the process ideally starts in an employee’s first year on an H-1B.

Starting early does two things. It builds in room for the backlog, and it can preserve the option to extend H-1B status beyond the usual six-year cap.

Under the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act, an H-1B worker may qualify for one-year extensions once a PERM has been pending for at least 365 days, and for longer extensions once an I-140 is approved but a visa number isn’t yet available. But that safety net is only available if the filing happened early enough, so you want to have a strategy in place from the start.

Signal 4: Immigration starts shaping business decisions

Immigration becomes a function when it stops being an occasional HR issue and starts affecting how you plan the business. If you’re recruiting internationally, opening new offices, raising venture capital, or forecasting headcount six to twelve months out, immigration is now part of your operational strategy. A delayed H-1B filing, a missed STEM OPT extension, or a Green Card process that starts too late can set back hiring plans, product timelines, and team growth.

A related sign is when managers start asking immigration questions that nobody clearly owns. “Can we hire this candidate?” “When can this employee switch teams?” “Should we start their Green Card now?” When those questions come up regularly, immigration has become a recurring business function, not a one-off legal task.

What timing mistakes do founders make?

A few avoidable mistakes come up again and again, said Ana Gabriela Urizar, an immigration lawyer for Manifest Law.

One is treating immigration as a one-time event instead of a long-term process. An H-1B approval is not the end of the conversation. By then, you should already be thinking about extension timelines, Green Card strategy, and long-term retention.

Another is assuming someone else is tracking the deadlines. 

“HR assumes legal is tracking them. Legal assumes HR is tracking them. The employee assumes the company is tracking them,” Urizar says. When ownership is unclear, deadlines get missed.

The last is underestimating how long permanent residence takes. With current backlogs, waiting until an employee is near the end of their H-1B can sharply limit their options.

Should you build an in-house immigration function or outsource it?

For most startups, the answer is both, but not necessarily in equal parts. Your team can own which employees you sponsor and ensure deadlines are met. Outside legal counsel can own the filings, the strategy, and the legal risk.

Ownership of the immigration function should stay in-house for these things:

• A named person who runs immigration and keeps it on track
• Custody of compliance documents, like Public Access Files and I-9 records
• The day-to-day relationship with sponsored employees

You can hand the following legal work to outside counsel, meaning a law firm experienced in corporate immigration:

• Preparing and filing petitions
• Choosing the right visa strategy for each employee
• Responding to Requests for Evidence
• Guiding you through government audits and site visits

What’s the cost of getting this wrong?

The cost of a weak immigration function can lead to employees losing their work authorization and fines or other penalties for the company.

I-9 paperwork is a common exposure. If ICE audits you, it starts with a Notice of Inspection, and you get at least three business days to produce your I-9 forms. 

Small technical or procedural errors aren’t automatically fined. You get at least 10 business days to correct them first. But uncorrected technical failures and substantive violations do carry penalties, currently  $288 to $2,861 per individual form. Knowingly employing an unauthorized worker can run $716 to $28,619 per worker. These fines can add up fast.

ICE sets the size of a fine by the share of your forms with violations, then adjusts up or down based on your business size, good faith, the seriousness of the violations, and your history. 

Enforcement also appears to be intensifying. The Department of Labor’s Project Firewall has put new scrutiny on H-1B employers, looking for things like displacing U.S. workers, weak recruitment, or misrepresented job duties. When investigators find violations, the Department says it may recover back wages, assess civil penalties, and even bar a company from the H-1B program entirely.

How to start an immigration function in 30 days

The first version of an immigration function is usually simple. 

“The goal is not to build bureaucracy,” Urizar says. “The goal is to create accountability and predictability.” 

For a company with only a handful of sponsored employees, that might mean quarterly reviews of upcoming visa expirations, a written Green Card sponsorship policy, and regular check-ins with outside counsel. The companies that handle immigration best create ownership early, document their process, and plan ahead before immigration becomes an emergency. 

You don’t need a big team to start your immigration function. Here are five things to put in place in the first 30 days:

1. Name an owner. Pick one person who is responsible for immigration deadlines and documents, even if it’s part-time.
2. Adopt a written policy. Put your rules in writing, including who you sponsor, who pays which fees, and how early you’re willing to begin an employee’s Green Card process.
3. Choose a tracking system. Consider a dedicated immigration case-management software rather than spreadsheets.
4. Engage counsel. Bring in a law firm experienced in corporate immigration to handle filings, strategy, and other legal work. You can request a consultation with a Manifest Law attorney as a first step.
5. Set a budget. Plan annual immigration costs ahead of time so the filings don’t come as a surprise expense.

You’ve done the research. Now it’s time for real answers, not guesswork. Start building your immigration function today with the guidance of an experienced immigration attorney—without hourly fees, confusion, or delay.

👉 Request a consultation with Manifest Law now.

FAQs when building an immigration function

How many sponsored employees before I need a dedicated immigration person?

There’s no fixed legal number. It depends on your situation more than your headcount. But if your company is dealing with multiple immigration deadlines or you have employees whose Green Card cases need to start soon, that may be a sign that it’s time to start your in-house immigration function.

Do we need to hire someone, or can our HR team handle it?

Your HR team can own functions like tracking dates, holding documents, and working with employees. The legal work, like petition filings and strategy, is best handled by an immigration attorney.

When should we start Green Cards for H-1B employees?

Because PERM now averages more than 500 days to process, starting early, potentially even in the employee’s first year, can build room for backlogs or delays.

What happens if we don’t build an immigration function?

If you don’t have an immigration function, you risk missing a deadline that costs an employee their work authorization, and you raise your exposure to fines during an audit.