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.
TN paperwork when the job title and the profession disagree
A TN file is short, and every page in it has to point at the same profession. Proof of Canadian or Mexican citizenship, a support letter describing professional duties and naming the listed profession, and the credential that profession's own entry demands. Where the title on the letter and the tasks underneath it disagree, the tasks decide, and the letter should be rewritten before travel rather than explained at the counter.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start from the tasks and work upward
- Match the credential to the entry, and translate it properly
- Decide the route before booking anything
Canadian permanent residence and the routes it does not open
Permanent residence in Canada and Canadian citizenship are different legal facts, and U.S. immigration law treats them differently. TN is reserved to citizens of Canada and Mexico, so a PR card cannot support it however many years it has been held. Other routes never asked about Canadian citizenship at all, which is why a permanent resident's options are narrower in one place and unchanged everywhere else.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The route that closes
- The routes that never depended on it
- What to do with the papers he does have
Proving an E-2 business is more than a job for its owner
Marginality is the requirement that sinks otherwise sound E-2 applications. An enterprise must have the present or near-future capacity to produce more than a living for the investor and family, and the document that answers it is payroll rather than a description of ambition. In an existing business, the wage records already exist. In a new one, the staffing plan must be arithmetic the projected revenue can carry.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Buy the payroll along with the business
- Substantial is a ratio, not a threshold
- Direct it yourself, and plan past the status
New-office L-1 filings and the company that has to exist first
A new-office petition is approved for one year initially, and it is judged on two separate foundations. The American side needs secured premises and a credible plan to support the role within that year. The foreign side needs to be a real entity that was already doing business and will keep doing business after the transfer, because the qualifying relationship has to exist on both ends throughout.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The foreign entity is half the case
- Premises secured, not premises identified
- What the twelve-month review will ask
Choosing between a transfer and an investment when you own part of the company
An owner-manager often qualifies for neither route on the terms she assumes. L-1 asks about a corporate relationship and a year of qualifying work, and does not care what percentage she holds. E-2 asks about treaty nationality and requires at least half the enterprise in treaty-national hands, so her percentage is decisive. The comparison is best made by asking each route its own questions rather than by comparing outcomes.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What the L side wants to know
- What the E side wants to know
- Questions to put to the accountant before the lawyer
TD and L-2 compared: which spouse may work and which may not
Dependent statuses are not interchangeable. A TD spouse accompanying a TN professional may live and study in the United States but has no employment authorisation. An L-2 spouse accompanying an L-1 transferee is employment-authorised incident to that status. Children under twenty-one are derivatives in both, may study in both, and may work in neither. Choosing the principal's route therefore decides what the second adult can do.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Two households, one difference
- Every person needs their own line
- Sequence the family alongside the principal
What each route still asks of you after the money has gone
Comparing EB-5 and the Gold Card by price misses the difference that matters most. EB-5 capital stays committed and at risk for a two-year conditional period, and the investor must later prove the investment was sustained and that at least ten qualifying jobs were created. The Gold Card's payments are a nonrefundable fee and an outright gift to the U.S. government, which end the financial story rather than beginning it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 keeps asking questions
- The Gold Card ends the money question and opens another
- Ask which proof you can actually produce