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.
Explain a biochemical investigation in the TN evidence
Connect the listed degree with the actual scientific work instead of relying on a laboratory title.
Identify the biochemical question, methods and conclusions for which the applicant will be responsible. Explain routine testing or administrative work honestly. A quality-control label can describe different jobs, so the employer’s account should make the professional duties understandable.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the investigation
- Identify the actual degree
- Connect the work with the temporary arrangement
Review a scientist’s citizenship separately from Canadian residence
A Canadian academic or employment history does not establish the citizenship required for TN.
TN is limited to Canadian or Mexican citizens. Canadian permanent residence, a Canadian degree and years of local employment do not themselves establish Canadian citizenship. Confirm nationality before organizing the application around the listed profession.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the actual citizenship record
- Then review qualification and procedure
- Record family documents separately
Test an E-2 forecast against operating capacity
Explain how the business can achieve its projected capacity rather than presenting a fifth-year number as self-proving.
A five-year projection is a stack of claims about customers, staffing, premises and spending, and each claim needs a resource standing behind it. Start on the revenue line: how many paying accounts does it assume, what is each one worth, and which of them already exist as signed agreements rather than quotations, pilots or letters of interest. Then turn the same discipline on cost: the headcount the volume requires, the month each hire starts, the payroll that follows, and whether the lease, equipment schedule and supply arrangements can physically carry the throughput being promised. Where a figure depends on something that has not happened yet, such as a distribution agreement still in negotiation or a certification still pending, put that dependency in the plan and show the range around it. A forecast that quietly promotes its best case into committed business is weaker evidence than a smaller number that reconciles line by line to documents already in the file.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Connect each growth assumption with a resource
- Apply the nonmarginality horizon
- Retain the complete investment conditions
Prepare an executive’s new-office authority and resources
A new-office proposal should explain both the executive’s authority and the operation that will support the role.
The first thing to settle is which framework the petition sits in, because the evidence changes with the answer. An entity that has been doing business in the United States for under a year is treated as a new office, and doing business means the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, not the mere existence of a corporation. A certificate of incorporation, a registered agent and a bank account opened in advance prove formation, not trading. Look instead for what the entity has actually done: invoices raised, contracts performed, payroll run, a lease signed, tax filings made. Getting this right early matters because the new-office route carries its own extra requirements and its own shorter first approval, and a petition assembled on the assumption that the entity is already established will be missing exactly the evidence the new-office branch asks for. One of those extra requirements decides cases: where a new office seeks an L-1A beneficiary whose United States duties will be primarily managerial or executive, the qualifying year abroad must itself have been managerial or executive work, and a year of specialized-knowledge work will not satisfy that test even though the same year would qualify a transfer into an established office.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the business stage
- Explain authority within the organization
- Keep L-1B and the common conditions visible
Compare executive authority with treaty-investor control
An executive delegation and an investor’s control rights should be examined under their own requirements.
Authority inside a corporate group and authority over an owned business come from different places, and the L-1 side is the one that depends on an employment history. The petition needs a qualifying relationship between the entities as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, both doing business regularly and continuously, one in the United States and the other in at least one further country, and one continuous year of full-time qualifying employment abroad within the three years before filing. That foreign year may have been managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work in an ordinary transfer, while the American role has to match whichever classification is requested. Days worked inside the United States do not count toward the year, though short visits do not automatically break its continuity. For an executive proposal, describe the direction of the organisation or of a major component, which goals and policies the person sets, what they may commit without approval, and how far the board's supervision actually reaches. A reservation of authority in a shareholders' agreement is one fact in that assessment, not the whole of it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- For L-1, explain the qualifying transfer
- For E-2, connect control with the investment
- Compare the complete facts
Coordinate a later family arrival without assuming shared permission
The principal travelling ahead and the household following later are separate immigration events, each with its own documents, its own permitted activities and its own timetable. Record them that way from the start.
When the principal moves first and the rest of the household follows, write one record per person rather than one record for the family. For each name, set down the intended date of travel, the status that person would hold, the documents that establish it, and what they intend to do after arrival: study at a particular level, take employment, or neither. A school term is a planning constraint, not an immigration milestone, and the two drift apart easily; a place held for September does not create permission to be present in September, and an offer accepted for a child does not settle whether a parent may work. Where a date is genuinely unsettled, record it as unsettled with the reason, because a single confident family arrival date invented for tidiness will later conflict with the documents. Note also who is not coming yet and why, since a relative who stays behind for a period may need their own evidence when they do travel.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify who intends to travel and when
- Apply the temporary dependent rules
- Keep immigrant family planning distinct
Compare EB-5 shared positions with Gold Card family commitments
EB-5 qualifying positions and Gold Card named people are different units; neither should be inflated or combined for convenience.
The EB-5 proposal needs an account of jobs; the Gold Card proposal needs an account of named applicants and intended joining family. Do not turn either into a convenient headcount total. On the employment roster, identify duties, permanent positions, weekly hours and the actual people covering them. On the household roster, identify the eligible spouse and unmarried children under 21, intended timing and unresolved plans. The two records answer different questions even if a family member hopes to work in the enterprise later.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Prepare a position roster and a household roster separately
- Check the shared-position claim before using it in the EB-5 plan
- Keep the capital assessment alongside the staffing plan
- Attach the Gold Card budget to the actual joining people