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.
Clarify the employer when an offer and payroll proposal name different companies
A Les Cèdres applicant may receive an offer from one entity while proposed payroll records name another. Identify the actual arrangement before assuming the names are interchangeable or that either document alone settles the TN case. Two names on two documents is not automatically a problem, but it is always a question, and the question has to be answered by someone inside the group rather than inferred from the paperwork. Ask who the applicant would take instructions from, who could dismiss them, and whose name appears on the contract with the end client.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify each company’s actual role
- Preserve the professional conditions
- Assess control and the applicable process
Explain an identity-document change without implying that citizenship changed
A Les Cèdres resident may replace a passport or correct a name while preparing a U.S. case. Separate the updated document from the actual nationality and category conditions. Write the change as a statement of fact before writing it as an explanation: what the old document said, what the new one says, which authority issued each, and on what date. Most of the confusion in these files comes from a narrative written first with documents fitted to it afterwards, when the documents themselves would have settled the point in two lines.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Record the real change
- Keep route eligibility independent
- Reconcile genuine records for each person
Reassess the investment when the buyer changes the business being acquired
A Les Cèdres investor may abandon one acquisition and select another. The earlier business plan and spending total do not automatically establish the new enterprise’s E-2 conditions. Treat the second transaction as a new file rather than an amendment of the first. Reusing the earlier plan is efficient only for the parts that genuinely carry over, and the parts that do not carry over are precisely the parts a reader will examine. Start with a clean list of what the new business is, what it costs, what is already committed and what remains to be done.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify what actually carries into the new transaction
- Assess capital and operations afresh
- Preserve nationality control and financing conditions
Explain premises access that depends on an unresolved condition
A Les Cèdres company may have a proposed lease whose occupancy depends on another event. Describe the actual rights and availability rather than presenting hoped-for access as premises already secured. State the condition in the words of the agreement, then state what has to happen for it to be satisfied, who has to do it, and by when. A condition described in general terms cannot be assessed by anyone, while a condition with a named party and a date can be planned around even while it remains unmet.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the agreement and remaining condition
- Apply the actual new-office category
- Retain company and owner evidence
Separate the foreign operation’s future from the U.S. investment plan
A Les Cèdres owner may plan a U.S. expansion while reducing activity abroad. Identify which qualifying operations will actually continue rather than assuming an investment budget resolves the L business requirement. Answer one question before comparing anything: after the expansion, what will actually happen at the Canadian company in twelve months and in twenty-four. Write it as activity rather than intention, in terms of contracts held, staff employed, work performed and filings made. A route depending on continuing operations abroad and a route that does not are affected by that answer in opposite directions.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Assess the actual L group and employment
- Assess the E-2 enterprise independently
- Describe the real continuation arrangements
A school schedule does not determine a dependent’s authorized stay
A Les Cèdres household may organize travel around a school year while the principal’s assignment has different dates. Track each person’s actual status instead of assuming enrollment keeps the family eligible for the whole academic period. Make one table for the household before anything is booked: each person's name, their category, the date their current period of authorized stay ends, their passport expiry, and, for children, their date of birth. Most of the difficulty in these files comes from three or four dates nobody had written in the same place, and the table takes an afternoon.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the individual category and admission dates
- Keep study and work rules separate
- Review a timetable that crosses an eligibility change
Identify the project’s job framework before comparing it with corporate Gold Card
A Les Cèdres investor may compare a regional-center EB-5 proposal with employer-supported Gold Card. A project’s employment analysis and a corporate sponsorship benefit answer different questions; identify the actual framework before relying on a summary. Begin by asking what the two are being compared on. One is an investment carrying a job-creation requirement and a conditional-residence stage; the other is a payment made by the applicant to the U.S. government on top of an underlying employment-based eligibility. Comparing them on cost alone compares two things that are not the same kind of thing.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Preserve the EB-5 investment and employment tests
- Preserve the Gold Card employee and family terms
- Keep financial and immigration outcomes distinct
- Ask which evidence supports the employment claim