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.
The two credentials a veterinarian needs are issued by different authorities
Hypothetical example: Constance is a Canadian citizen practising large-animal veterinary medicine near Chisholm, mostly herd health and reproductive work for beef and dairy clients. A U.S. veterinary group has offered her a position. She holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and an Ontario licence, and assumes the licence travels with her. It does not. The degree answers the immigration question; the licence to practise is a state matter and is the employer's problem as much as hers.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The degree is the document the profession list actually names
- The state licence is a separate authority and a separate timeline
- Which document decides the case depends on which question is being asked
A sponsoring employer cannot create eligibility that the category does not contain
Hypothetical example: Ayaan is an Ethiopian citizen who holds Canadian permanent residence and works as a dairy herdsperson on an operation near Chisholm. An American dairy has offered him a herd management position and has told him it will sponsor whatever is needed. He believes his PR card puts him on the same footing as his Canadian-born colleagues. It does not, and an employer's willingness cannot supply what the category itself withholds.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What usually goes wrong: mistaking permanent residence for citizenship
- What sponsorship can and cannot do
- The routes that ignore citizenship, and the one that changes it
Answering marginality when the business would start with only the family in it
Hypothetical example: Marisol grows bedding plants and nursery stock under glass near Chisholm and has agreed to buy a small nursery in an American state. In its first season the business would employ her, her husband and nobody else. She has the capital and the horticultural record. The question she has been asked, and cannot yet answer, is whether an enterprise that supports only her household is marginal, and what evidence would show otherwise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What the marginality requirement actually asks
- What the evidence must prove, item by item
- The requirements that marginality sits beside
One year to build something a manager can plausibly manage
Hypothetical example: Eric owns a farm-drainage contracting company near Chisholm, installing tile and building outlets for cropland, and plans to open an American office to serve growers he already quotes for across the border. He would transfer himself to run it. Because the U.S. entity will be new, the petition is approved for one year only, and the capacity to support a managerial role within that year has to be shown with something firmer than optimism.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Sequence the corporate and property steps before the petition is drafted
- Show capacity with money, structure and a hiring schedule
- Treat the first-year plan as a commitment, because the extension tests it
Questions for the seller that decide which route is even open
Hypothetical example: Tanya runs an agricultural-equipment dealership near Chisholm, selling and servicing tractors, seeders and haying equipment. She is weighing two options: buying an American dealership outright and investing in it, or having her own company open a U.S. entity and transferring herself into it. Which route is realistic depends less on her preference than on answers only the seller can give her, and she should get them before an adviser is asked to choose.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what exactly is for sale, and who currently owns it
- Ask for the numbers that both routes will be judged against
- Ask what the seller wants after closing, then match the route to the answer
One household where two children have entirely different options
Hypothetical example: the Bergeron-Nwosu household plans to move together. The principal transfers on L-1A; the spouse teaches and wants to keep working; there is a seventeen-year-old finishing secondary school and a twenty-two-year-old in a trades program. Three of the four have a route. The fourth has already aged out of derivative status and needs a plan of their own, and delay makes the seventeen-year-old's position worse rather than better.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The spouse can work; the derivative children cannot
- The twenty-two-year-old is not a derivative and never will be
- What changes if the plan slips: the seventeen-year-old is on a clock
What each route still asks of you after the money has been paid
Hypothetical example: Hank grows cash crops and finishes beef near Chisholm and is selling a parcel that will leave him with substantial liquid capital. He is comparing EB-5 against the Gold Card and has been reading about the entry price for each. The more useful comparison is what happens afterwards, because one route imposes years of continuing obligations tied to jobs and a second petition, and the other does not.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 obliges him to prove ten jobs and to file again
- The Gold Card obliges him to nothing resembling job creation
- The distinction Hank should hold onto