Read it.
Use it.
Focused guides for the questions that need more than a quick answer. Each includes a worksheet to prepare your next conversation.
Guides for your next decision.
Build a TN employer evidence brief before drafting the letter
Read & prepare Applicant planningKeep an L-1A new-office record from approval to extension
Read & prepare Applicant planningCompare the E-2 evidence for a startup and a business purchase
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for New York State
Read & prepare U.S. destination planningCanadian RN planning for California
Read & prepareSeven decisions, answered before you prepare.
What a support letter has to say, and who should sign it
Hypothetical example: an economist from Roxton Pond is engaged by a hardwood lumber group in the United States, and the only support letter offered is written by an outside recruiter, describes an open-ended permanent placement, and never names either the entry relied on or what the economist will actually produce. Economist is a listed profession; a letter that identifies no deliverable, no period and no responsible signatory establishes nothing about it. The letter has to describe the professional deliverable accurately, name the entry relied on, identify the qualification, and be signed by somebody who can answer for it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the deliverable, not the department
- Match the credential to the entry, item by item
- Signatures, translations and the things that contradict
Permanent residence, citizenship, and which of them opens TN
Hypothetical example: a kiln and dry-yard supervisor at a hardwood mill near Roxton Pond has held Canadian permanent residence for fourteen years and is a citizen of Portugal. He assumes his permanent resident card makes him eligible for TN. It does not, because TN is a citizenship category open to citizens of Canada and Mexico. His own citizenship may nevertheless matter a great deal for a different route, so the answer is to separate the two facts and use each where it counts.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- TN follows citizenship and nothing else
- Another citizenship may open a different door
- Prove nationality with the right instrument
Committing capital when part of it arrives as equipment
Hypothetical example: a buyer from Roxton Pond acquires a small United States millwork business and intends to contribute a significant part of the investment as machinery shipped from Canada rather than as cash. In-kind contributions can form part of a qualifying investment, but they raise two questions cash does not: what the equipment is genuinely worth, and whether it has actually passed out of the investor’s personal control into the enterprise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Value it independently, then prove it changed hands
- Substantial in proportion, and more than marginal
- Develop and direct, and the limits of the route
What a new-office transfer has to prove by month twelve
Hypothetical example: a sawmill-automation company near Roxton Pond files a new-office petition for its engineering director, supported by a business plan lifted almost unchanged from the Canadian parent’s own plan, with no United States staffing, premises detail or revenue projection of its own. A new office is approved for one year initially, and the extension is measured against what the office has actually become — which means the plan needs to describe the American entity specifically.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- One year, then a real review
- Premises and capacity are evidence, not intentions
- The plan has to be about the United States entity
Choosing between transferring yourself and investing personally
Hypothetical example: the owner of a custom millwork and stair-parts shop near Roxton Pond holds one hundred per cent of the Canadian company and wants to open a United States operation. She is weighing a transfer against a personal investment. One fact settles most of it: she bought the business nine months ago, so she has not completed the continuous year of qualifying employment abroad that a transfer requires within the preceding three years.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The transfer route asks about the last three years
- The treaty route asks about money and control
- Compare the ceilings and the family consequences
When the spouse has a listed profession of her own
Hypothetical example: a household in Roxton Pond is weighing a move where the principal could go either as a listed professional or as a company transferee, and the spouse is a graphic designer who intends to keep working. That second fact changes the analysis, because Graphic Designer appears on the professional list in its own right, met by a baccalaureate or licenciatura degree or, in the alternative, by a post-secondary diploma or post-secondary certificate together with three years of experience. The household may have two independent applicants rather than one applicant and one dependant.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The dependant rules are not the same in both routes
- A spouse with her own listing has her own route
- Children, study, and the twenty-first birthday
Comparing EB-5 and the Gold Card when the money sits in a company
Hypothetical example: a couple from Roxton Pond hold most of their capital inside an operating company and are comparing the investor route with the Gold Card framework. The immigration comparison is the easy half. The harder half is that one route needs the individual’s own lawfully sourced capital traced into an enterprise, while the other needs a gift, and getting money out of a company changes the arithmetic of both.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The investor route wants capital at risk and ten jobs
- The Gold Card wants a fee and a gift
- Extracting money from a company is its own problem