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.
Turn a proposed TN role into a set of claims you can actually verify
Before the employer letter is drafted, list the specific claims the file needs to establish: citizenship, an identified professional position, and the exact qualification the listed profession requires. Assign each claim a supporting record and a named person who can confirm it. The result is a working file that is useful for review, not one that has been polished to sound more favorable than the actual job.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with whichever duty is hardest to classify
- Keep employer facts and credential facts on separate tracks
- Resolve inconsistencies before anyone signs
Treat citizenship and Canadian residence as two separate facts from the start
Holding a Canadian permanent resident card establishes Canadian legal status, not Canadian citizenship. A household in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area may include several different citizenships and correspondingly different U.S. options, even while everyone lives at the same address. Confirm actual passports, current immigration status, and each person's proposed activity before deciding which route or process might apply.
Hypothetical example: one partner already holds Canadian citizenship while the other has a pending Canadian citizenship application. Record the pending application as pending. TN requires actual Canadian or Mexican citizenship, so an anticipated future grant cannot be treated as already satisfying that condition, and a preferred departure date should not turn a future possibility into a present fact.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Write down what is already true, not what is expected soon
- Assess each opportunity under its own actual requirements
- Keep Canadian obligations visible alongside the U.S. process
Identify which stage of the transaction the funds are actually at
An available balance, an approved loan, and a signed purchase agreement can each describe a different stage of the same transaction. Map the actual proposed commitment and its specific conditions before drawing any conclusion about what the E-2 record shows. The investment and the operating enterprise need to be examined together, with nationality and real control kept visible throughout.
Hypothetical example: a purchase agreement is contingent on both an immigration outcome and a separate financing condition. Read each trigger for payment, release, or cancellation carefully. A described escrow arrangement can be relevant, but its label alone does not establish that the actual terms meet the applicable requirements; coordinate transactional and immigration review before any funds become irreversible.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what happens if a condition in the deal is not met
- Trace the source of the funds and identify any security
- Explain the enterprise beyond its purchase price
Keep the original new-office plan intact and record what actually develops
For a new-office L-1A petition, the initial submission has to explain an operation capable of supporting a managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Preserve that original plan without alteration, and separately record what actually develops afterward. Extension preparation needs evidence of the real business and role, not simply an updated version of the original forecast.
Identify the secured premises, the financial resources committed, and the planned sequence for staffing and responsibilities. Hypothetical example: a company plans for its transferee to launch the office personally and hire operational support somewhat later. Describe the transferee's initial tasks honestly, along with the managerial or executive role anticipated as the business grows. A company's registration or an impressive title is not, by itself, a complete evidentiary account. New-office treatment concerns a U.S. organization doing business for less than one year. Establish the continuous full-time qualifying foreign year within the relevant preceding three years; for new-office L-1A that year must be managerial or executive.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the resources actually supporting the launch
- Record material changes as they actually happen
- Build the extension filing from what actually happened
Compare a company transfer and a personal business purchase without mixing their facts
An L-1 transfer and an E-2 investment each need to be assessed against the actual arrangement that route would require. Do not take the employment history from one proposal and combine it with the ownership or funding facts of another proposal, then treat the blended result as one established option. Begin with two complete, separate descriptions and identify what remains unresolved in each.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Diagram the entities involved in each proposal separately
- Describe the actual proposed work under each option
- Compare the commitments and the household consequences
Build the household plan around each person's actual intended activity
A single household move can involve genuinely different employment, study, and arrival plans for each family member. Record each person's citizenship, relationship documentation, age, and intended activity before assuming that one person's status automatically grants the whole household every permission it needs. The principal applicant's opportunity is a reasonable starting point, but it is not a complete answer for everyone in the family.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Treat intended remote work as work
- Separate study plans from employment and age-related limits
- Identify the consequence of a changed date for any one person
Keep a commercial investment and a Gold Card gift as two different kinds of payment
EB-5 and the Gold Card framework describe two different financial and legal structures. EB-5 concerns qualifying at-risk capital and required job creation; the official Gold Card FAQ describes a gift-based process leading to EB-1 or EB-2 permanent residence for eligible successful applicants, subject to admissibility and visa availability. Compare the actual requirements of each rather than reading two dollar figures as competing prices for the identical result.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what the payment is actually intended to accomplish
- Review the family total and each person's individual eligibility
- Keep financial due diligence and immigration review as separate workstreams