O-1B Concurrent Visa Approval for Las Vegas Knights and National Hockey League Broadcaster 

We are proud to announce that Oakhurst Immigration Law successfully prepared a concurrent O-1B visa for international broadcaster Daren Millard of the Las Vegas Knights Hockey Team. Daren Millard is a Canadian national who is known all over the world for his coverage of the best hockey players and teams in the world. His recognition as an international media personality created a market opportunity for him to pursue additional projects outside of his position as the primary commentary for Las Vegas Knights Hockey Games. 

Daren was already on an O-1 visa that permitted work authorization for commentary with the Las Vegas Knights and special events with the National Hockey League. However, he came into an issue when he wanted to pursue other opportunities, such as independent coverage of other hockey-related activities and his very popular podcast, ‘The Chirp’. 

In order to pursue these additional business opportunities, Oakhurst Immigration Law filed a petition for another concurrent O-1 visa to permit employment related to the new opportunities. Daren was required to file an additional O-1 because the initial filing did not have the additional activities included at the time of the approval of the visa. 

O-1 visas are one of the few nonimmigrant visas that permit concurrent I-129 approval at the same time. Thus, if a beneficiary is already in the United States when the concurrent O-1 visa is approved, the beneficiary can engage in the new work services without any negative change to valid immigration status. 

Daren’s tremendous professional background supported both petitions as he covered the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup Finances, and he is on Manitoba Sportswriters and Sportscasters Media Roll of Honor. Both O-1B petitions were awarded a validity period of three years and can be a great step towards permanent residence under the EB-1A category. 

“We are providing an education to both the sports and film industries that concurrent O-1 visas are permissible and often appropriate,” partner Sherrod Seward says. “Too many foreign persons with extraordinary abilities find themselves in peril of engaging in unauthorized work by not fully complying with the O-1 visa.”

Oakhurst Immigration Law is a consistent and reliable resource for sports broadcasters, film production companies, on-air talent, and production support personnel to obtain O-1 and O-2 visas. For more information on O-1 visas and concurrent I-129 filings, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Email: info@oandpvisas.com

Phone: 310-209-8545