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.
Reconciling a salary shown in two currencies
The signed contract and the employer's support letter state different figures because one of them was converted into U.S. dollars. Before asking anyone to reissue a document, establish what the compensation actually is: the currency of the contract, the pay period, the hours it assumes, and which items were folded into the converted number. The goal is one accurate account of the arrangement, not the most attractive figure.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Fix the currency, the period and the hours
- Ask what the compensation is being used to establish
- Have the author of the document correct it
Recording an earlier U.S. approval when the employer has changed
An approval obtained through a former employer described that employer, that role and those dates. A new position is a new set of facts. Before planning a start date, assemble what the earlier approval actually was, what it permitted and whether it remains in effect, and keep that record separate from your citizenship and your Canadian status, which are different questions again.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Write down the earlier approval precisely
- Separate the steps that are genuinely distinct
- Describe the new position on its own facts
Separating capital already committed from a partner's promised tranche
A partner who intends to invest later is not the same fact as capital already placed at risk. Two records are needed: what the applicant has actually committed and owns today, and what the proposed future funding would change. Keep them apart, because the second one moves ownership percentages, and those percentages form part of how the enterprise itself is assessed.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- State today's position with documents
- Read the promise as a document
- Model what dilution would do to ownership and control
Describing premises when the U.S. work is meant to be remote
A new-office plan built around distributed staff and a mailing address still has to answer the premises question. Neither answer is automatic: a non-traditional arrangement is not disqualified by its label, and an address service is not accepted merely because it produces a street address. Describe the operation first, then show what physical space that operation actually uses. The practical decision is whether the business can secure premises that fit its first-year activities, or whether the operating plan needs to change. The agreement, access rights and actual use of the space are more useful than a generic statement that the team can work remotely. A credible file connects the location decision to the role the new operation must support within its first year.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Write down what the work physically requires
- Read the address or workspace agreement itself
- Connect the premises to the role the operation must support
When spouses of different citizenships own the business together
When spouses with different citizenships own a business, establish each person's actual nationality instead of treating the marriage certificate as nationality evidence. Trace how that ownership affects the enterprise's treaty nationality and record each spouse's own employment history. Those separate records support a comparison between an L-1 transfer and an E-2 investment.
Produce the share register or operating agreement, the classes of interest, the voting rights attached to each, the dates each holding was acquired and what was paid for it. Record every citizenship each spouse holds, with passports, and note which holdings stand in one name, in both, or are held through another entity or a trust. Where an interest is held indirectly, follow the chain through to the individuals. A statement about who runs the business is not a substitute for the register.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Document ownership as it is actually held
- Distinguish a majority stake from control
- Separate each spouse's employment history from the couple's
Changing a child's school partway through an assignment
A school place and an immigration status answer to different authorities. Admission is decided by the school or board under its own requirements; the child's permission to be present and to study comes from their status. Sort your questions into those two piles before assuming that a transfer requires an immigration step, or that nothing about the move touches status at all.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Confirm the child's status facts first
- Ask the school what it needs, in its own terms
- Look for the parts that involve work or a different kind of program
Rebuilding a funds trail that crossed several currencies
Money that moved through two or three currencies before reaching a destination account has a history that a closing balance does not show. Reconstruct it step by step: where the funds lawfully came from, every account and institution they passed through, and what was actually available after conversion costs. Do that work before deciding between an EB-5 investment and a Gold Card application.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Reconstruct each leg with its own records
- Work out what is actually available
- Compare the two commitments on their own terms