Legal Questions

Thanks for your inquiry. This is one of those inquiries where there is a "legal answer" and a "practical answer." The legal answer is that what you plan on doing may not technically fall within the scope of employment which would violate the terms of your F-1 status. But the practical answer is that you should steer far clear of any activity which may close to crossing a line that could lead to you losing your status here in the US. Whether a foreign national is engaged in unauthorized employment is sometimes a difficult question to answer. Rather than consider whether conduct would or would not cross the line into unauthorized, let's take a look at the intent of your visa. You are here to study and to do so on a full time basis. So anything that would take you away from conducting yourself consistent with the purpose of your visa is an activity that could be deemed to be violative of your status as a student. Now the likelihood of the Department of Homeland Security figuring any of this out is slim. Truth is that ICE agents are unlikely to be in a position to spend their time looking for folks who are blatantly violating the terms of their status by accepting unauthorized employment. So doing the work that you are discussing is something that is probably even more remote in regards to the possibility that someone from ICE would find out and then seek to do something about it. You never know what can go right and what could go wrong. And you would probably not like to be placed in a position where you are attempting to explain to ICE that your selling goods online is not "employment" within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act. So the best advice that I could give is to just steer absolutely clear of anything that may cause an issue with your immigration status. If you do get unlucky and you do get caught you can essentially kiss your status in the US goodbye and that would likely be for a really long time. If you are lucky enough to be in a position to attend a school here and you can establish that the costs of attending can be covered without the need for you to accept unauthorized employment, I would just leave it there. It is just not worth the risk. If you still plan on going forward with this plan I would consult with someone or have someone on call, just in case. No one with any level of competence is going to advise you to engage in a course of conduct which could remotely be defined as violative of your status and if you are so advised, make sure you have that attorney on retainer so that if the worst happens, you are prepared. Good luck.