I have to wonder about the ulterior motives behind posting hypotheticals like your “someone else” has been busy doing. In their case, I believe they showed their true motivation when they tried to start a thread here on how to report border violators in various areas around the world. That thread was quickly removed by the moderator but I think we need to keep in mind that there are plenty of folks in the US and elsewhere that believe border crackdowns are a just and righteous cause and believe they are contributing to that cause with scaremongering wrapped in a cloak of faux concern.
FWIW, the entire “weird random reason” hypothetical had no basis in actual fact.
@OnTheRoadAgain What visa have you found that allows housesitting in the US? There are other threads on here where people have explored this and found NO visa that really covers housesitting. So then- if you want to keep things strictly legal and all above board- you must only sit where you are legally allowed to work. In my case that is the UK & all of the EU as I have dual citizenship. But this has not, and will not, stop me housesitting all around the world, as my husband and I have long been doing. For us the big exception is the US. That is beyond our risk comfort level.
It seems for some sitters the UK is also a risk if they are not cautious enough. But in our experience the rest of the world is far more relaxed about the ‘grey area’ of housesitting. Nevertheless we are cautious about what we say at any border control and we never say we are housesitting. I don’t feel this is lying at all as we are also tourists there, visiting the country, including sometimes doing touristy things, and maybe visiting friends there too. As seasoned travellers you become naturally cautious that anything, & everything, you say can be held against you by an immigration officer who is having a bad day!
In the US, H1B, H2B or a green card.
The UK has its equivalents.
No one is getting visas (and definitely not a green card) to pet sit in the U.S. Visas like that are actually time-consuming to get and they’re for longer-term workers, like tech employees. For instance, some companies sponsor people to work in the U.S. and the person must be employed to stay in the U.S. – paid work. If they lose their jobs, they have only a limited window to find a new employer. Otherwise, they can’t stay in the U.S. And you have to show that you have skills that aren’t easily filled by someone who’s already in the country. Dog walking, pet sitting and house sitting aren’t specialized skills.
Having worked with many of H2B workers, that not “easily filled” test is a pretty tiny fig leaf.
As I have said before, getting a work visa would be impractical for just housesitting. But we have had sitters with US work visas.
In the US, neither a H-1B or H-2B would be available for house-sitting. H-1Bs are for workers whose job requires a degree in a specific field, and they have that degree. I did thousands of H-1Bs in my career as an immigration lawyer.
H-2B is for seasonal agricultural work.
H-2A is for other seasonal work, but is also very difficult to obtain and definitely not at short notice like a lot of house sitting positions are. Plus house sitting is not really a seasonal job so it wouldn’t qualify.
There is no US visa that would allow house sitting. Some foreign nationals might have unlimited work authorization, such as the spouses of H-1B workers, asylum seekers, permanent residents (green card holder), etc, but nobody would be able to apply for a visa specifically for house sitting
Foreign nationals are unambiguously allowed to house sit IF they have work visas. But getting a US work visa to housesit is not practical even if it might be remotely possible. We’ve had sitters with US work visas and we’ve had sitters without.
This is not correct. I cannot think of any work “visa” that has unrestricted work authorization. Almost all of them are tied to a specific employer and/or position. If somebody comes here on an H-1B visa to work for Intel, for example, they are not authorized to house sit. They are only authorized to work for Intel and if they work for anybody else, they have violated their status.
The dependents of people on some work visas can get unrestricted work authorization that would allow them to house sit. However, the primary visa holder does not have that flexibility.
I’ve been a US lawyer, specializing in employment-based immigration, since about 1997.
Thanks for the “clarification” though, in truth, I’m more confused about housesitters than I knew I could be.
So some spouses of H1 visa holders can housesit, presumably with the H1 holder accompanying, but H1 holders themselves cannot housesit independently? How about green card holders.
Given the complexity, are homeowners expected to know the intricacies of US visas and can be held legally accountable if they do not?
that is an interesting question. What happens to HOs if they offer a sit to someone not authorized to “work” in the US?
As mentioned in my first reply to you, permanent residents (green card holders) have unrestricted work authorization, as do some others. However, those are not people that have “work visas” as you described it, so I didn’t include them in my reply.
I would not assume that the primary visa holder (H-1B, L-1, etc) can accompany their work-authorized dependent on a sit. If house-sitting is work under US immigration laws, then the primary visa holder can’t help the dependent with the work, because they are then working without authorization. It would be the same as if the dependent worked as a gardener and the primary visa holder helped with gardening chores. Realistically, it is highly unlikely ICE or USCIS would discover these violations.
On a strict interpretation, HOs could be held accountable for “employing” house-sitters. They could be fined, like individuals who hire undocumented nannies, cleaners, etc. Again, this is unlikely to happen, but theoretically possible.
@Dek, noting the evolving discussion in regards work visas (person, spouse), employment status and border checks then it does rather seem to reflect question back to you … how strongly do you want to housesit in US?
I cannot conceive that more than a tiny fraction of international housesitters would want to apply for a work visa, or worse still a work visa for each “employer” pet parent. Given that US considers housesitting to be employment with compensation-in-kind then why would US issue work visa. Sometimes issues are simply too difficult.
Seems a staggering amount of work, risk and stress. We each make our choices. Even several months ago, before escalations, this seemed a clear-cut decision for us.
Even if a foreign national sitter wanted to apply for a visa to house-sit, there is none available. Almost every letter of the alphabet has a visa category, and most have multiple (e.g. H-1B, H-1B1, H-4, H-2A, H-2B) yet there is no category appropriate for house-sitting.
DO NOT GO TO THE USA! This is considered unpaid work and taking work from Americans. It is not considered volunteering. You will be detained and it will cost you to just have to return to the UK. It isn’t worth it. Even if you were going on a legit holiday with hotels booked etc. you will be interviewed and screened and questioned.
Our neighbor on PEI who is American and owns a cottage here, came up this summer with a friend in her car from Boston and her friend was going to fly home. When her friend went to fly home to the USA she went through US customs before boarding the plane and she was interviewed, had to unpack all her stuff and didn’t get the “welcome back to the USA as an American citizen born and raised there”.
That is pretty much true worldwide.
Hello PEI! 
There don’t seem to be many THS members there, or at least not owners. I’ve been househunting on PEI since June so I keep an eye out for sits there. Have seen, like, 2 or 3? Just had to digress and say “hi” 
That’s weird about your neighbour’s friend. I wonder what they thought was suspicious. I’ve heard that women travelling alone can raise suspicion because they might be drug mules or something. 
I always figured coming back to Canada, it would be the same deal, “welcome home” etc. (a previous time when I drove back in at St. Stephen the customs guy said exactly that). On my last (sadly, last, I guess) trip to the states I felt like I got a few more questions on my return too.
The tipping here has gotten so out of hand. Most Americans feel that way too about tipping for coffee.
Some will be some will be not. Even in the best of times there was always a question or two asked
Do not remember now when it stopped but It wasn’t so very long ago that all passengers flying from Europe (and likely from other countries, too) to the US had to go through US customs in the departure country before boarding.
That is strange. But sometimes border guards do that. I got checked once, I had sticks in the car. Sticks for my dog, to throw in the water. They took the sticks. Sometimes they are hard ass. I go back and forth all the time. Sometimes I till tell them I have a couple of cuccumbers and they let me go, sometimes they take them. I am a dual citizen, my car is packed since I am sitting, but usually it is a quick question and I am on my way.
Ireland and Bermuda are examples of this.