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.
Sorting clinical and commercial duties in a pharmacist's TN offer
An offer that mixes pharmacy practice with account management raises two questions at once: whether the position matches the listed profession being relied on, and which credentials the regulation requires for that profession. Assemble the offer, the degree, any practice-authority records and a duty-by-duty description before choosing a route, and mark the duties that would sit outside professional practice so the person reviewing the file can see them.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Write the duties down before naming the profession
- Credential requirements and practice authority answer different questions
- Order translations and evaluations for the right question
Newly arrived in Canada, with an older U.S. immigration record
An employer may say the route is TN because that is what it has used before. That practice describes the employer, not your eligibility. TN concerns citizens of Canada and Mexico; recent lawful residence in Canada does not supply that citizenship, and permanent residence alone would not either. Write down your current citizenships, your status in Canada, and what your earlier U.S. record actually contains before the discussion begins.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Record citizenship and status separately from time spent in Canada
- Reconstruct the older U.S. record before describing it from memory
- Test who the employer is and what role you would fill
When the family gift has been promised but not transferred
A relative's promise to fund a U.S. business is a plan, not a committed investment. An E-2 review looks at funds actually committed and at risk, at their lawful source, and at who controls the enterprise. Before you build a timetable around the promise, write down what has moved, what is documented, and what still depends on a future decision by someone else.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate promised, transferred and irrevocably committed funds
- Read the control terms, not only the amount
- Keep the U.S. enterprise and its evidence in view
When a subcontractor would perform all of the first year's work
A new-office plan in which an outside firm delivers every service during the first year still has to explain what the transferee will personally do. There is no fixed headcount, but for L-1A the operation must support a managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Set out the contracts, the reporting lines and the applicant's own tasks with dates and documents.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Map who performs the work and who directs it
- Check the qualifying facts before the plan
- Plan the year you will later have to explain
Mapping several U.S. locations before assuming each needs its own filing
A business opening a second and third U.S. site first has to say whether those sites belong to one legal entity or to separate companies. That answer changes the employer facts on which both routes depend. Draw the corporate structure and the applicant's role at each location before assuming either that a new address requires another application or that it requires nothing at all.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Draw the entities before you draw the map
- Describe the employer and the role, location by location
- Compare the routes on the same facts, then add the household
A pending adoption is a fact to prove before dates are set
A child living with the household under an adoption that has not been finalized raises a question of legal relationship, not of intention. Dependent categories describe relationships that exist on the available evidence. Assemble the family-law documents now — judgments, custody or guardianship orders, birth records — and ask which of them the applicable category recognizes, and what remains outstanding.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the current legal relationship, not the hoped-for one
- Keep each household member's activities separate
- Sequence the decisions and keep the open questions visible
When an inheritance arrives in instalments and part is not liquid
An estate that pays over several years, with land or shares that have not been sold, does not produce a single available figure. EB-5 concerns capital placed at risk and the lawful source and path of that capital. The official Gold Card FAQ describes a different arrangement, based on a gift paid to the U.S. government after successful vetting. Establish what you actually hold, and when, before comparing anything.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Turn the estate into dates, amounts and evidence
- Ask what the EB-5 evidence must establish
- Read the Gold Card FAQ as its own process