California or Bust

It has long been my dream to live and work in California. I have worked in professional software sales for almost 10 years now and the company I now work for has offered to sponsor me down to the States within the next few years. I have read and found very helpful many of the postings here and I see that since I don't have a bachelors degree and I'm not on the NAFTA job list I won't qualify for a TN VISA but my question is do I need a degree in order to qualify for the L1-B transfer VISA?

To further complicate the situation, my boyfriend is a Paramedic in Canada. This profession is also not on the NAFTA job list and he believes that his education is not transferable to a Paramedic job in California so he would need to go back to school whether it be for that profession or something else in healthcare.

I'm wondering what options we have considering our desire to move there together and not have him shuttling back and forth every six months? The job being offered to me in the States will allow me to support him and myself but I don't have savings to show that I can support him otherwise. Our initial thought was that he could come down with me and apply for school while there, eventually working in California himself. Now after reading this forum for a couple of hours I'm starting to think that it's not that easy.

If anyone has suggestions or can speak from experience I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

No you definitely do not need a degree for L-1B this is an often misunderstood concept. It requires you to have "specialized knowledge" which means bespoke knowledge about how that company works that is important to doing the job and which a person off the street wouldn't have. (And obviously it must be a legitimate intracompany transfer).

One of my relatives got L-1B and he's never set foot inside a college.

Your boyfriend could get L-2 if you were married, and L-2 can get work authorization easily by filing I-765. You can also study as L-2.

Bear in mind though L-1B can only be renewed up to five years maximum, without a degree the best you'll be able to do if they file an I-140 for you is probably EB-3 Skilled Worker, which takes around 3.5 years for a visa number to come up and another seven to eight months for AOS (although the wait might have shortened a little due to the recession). So basically it's important they file an I-140 for you reasonably quickly after you enter.