Read the general life across the border overview
A Saint-Constant household may be planning a relationship milestone alongside a U.S. move. Record the genuine relationship and available evidence at the relevant stage rather than presenting an expected future event as already completed.
Keep the qualifying relationship and child conditions explicit
TD, E and L dependent planning generally concerns the qualifying spouse and unmarried children under 21. Identify the actual relationship, citizenship and documents for each intended applicant. A planned ceremony or shared address does not itself establish that the relevant spouse condition has already been met.
Do not attach work permission to the family’s timetable
TD does not authorize employment. Qualifying E and L spouses may work incident to valid status with appropriate evidence; an EAD is not universally mandatory. Children do not obtain that spouse benefit. A relationship event alone is not the same as holding the qualifying status or evidence needed for work. Write down, for each adult in the household, the document that would evidence permission to work and who issues it. Where that document does not yet exist, the household has no income from that person to plan around, whatever the underlying entitlement may eventually be. Employment beginning before the evidence exists is the risk this exercise is meant to remove.
Track individual stay, study and age questions
Prepare a dated relationship record: the event already completed, the authentic certificate available, any translation still needed, and the proposed dependent filing or travel. An expected document should remain marked pending. For children, separately track unmarried-under-21 eligibility and authorized stay; school enrollment does not lengthen that stay. Any immigrant CSPA question needs its own analysis and does not generally freeze temporary TD, E or L age limits. If a household milestone changes, update the intended application facts rather than backdating the event to match an earlier plan.
The certificate that establishes the relationship, and what to do before it exists
Dependent applications are decided on relationships, and a relationship is proved by a civil-status record issued by an authority, not by a shared lease, a joint account or photographs. Obtain the certificate itself rather than a receipt for it, check that the names match the passports exactly, and arrange the translation as a separate document from the certificate so each can be assessed on its own. A weak version of this evidence is a certified copy of a copy, whose chain of certification nobody can follow. Where the event has not yet happened, say so plainly in the plan and mark every document depending on it as pending; describing an expected event as completed is the error that causes the most damage here, because it is discoverable from the dates. Build the plan in two versions, one for each outcome, rather than a single plan assuming the event occurs on time. For a child, track the unmarried-under-twenty-one condition and the authorised period of stay as separate items, since they move independently. Hypothetical example: a family whose principal applicant works as an industrial designer plans around a ceremony date, and the issuing office turns out to set the earliest date any dependent document can carry.
What else is on your mind?
Is a matching job title enough for TN?Can years of experience replace a degree for TN?Can my own U.S. company employ me under TN?Can my spouse work if I hold TN status?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.