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.
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's TN guide: the order in which a dietitian should gather documents
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's dietitian offered a U.S. hospital position should gather TN documents in the order that exposes problems earliest: citizenship proof first, then the Appendix 2 entry and its credential rule, then the state licensing position, and only then the employer letter. The letter is written last because it must reflect what the earlier documents prove. Dietitian is a listed profession qualified by a baccalaureate degree or a state or provincial licence, and the position must be prearranged, professional and temporary.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Step one: citizenship, then the list entry
- Step two: the state licensing question
- Step three: the employer letter, written from the evidence
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's guide: a permanent resident asked to take a U.S. assignment
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's permanent resident of Canada who is not a Canadian citizen cannot use TN, and cannot use E-2 unless a country of which they are a national has a qualifying treaty. What remains is the L-1 route through a related employer, which has no nationality requirement, and the timing question of whether to apply for Canadian citizenship before or after the assignment. The permanent-resident card is proof of Canadian status, not of any U.S. eligibility.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Which routes disappear and which survive
- Citizenship changes the answer, but only once it is granted
- Family members have their own citizenship facts
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's E-2 guide: buying a boatyard with seller financing
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's marine-services operator buying a U.S. boatyard where the seller finances part of the price must understand that only the portion of the price actually paid from the investor's own funds and placed at risk counts as the investment. A seller note secured on the boatyard itself is not the investor's capital at risk, though a loan secured on the investor's personal assets can be. The structure also has to leave the investor in control and the business real, operating and more than marginal.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What counts and what does not
- Substantiality with a smaller counted investment
- Control, licensing and what to ask the seller
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's L-1 guide: opening a first U.S. office for an occupational-health consultancy
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's consultancy that provides occupational-health programs to employers and wants its founder to open a first U.S. office can use a new-office L-1A petition, which is approved for one year and extended only if the office has developed. The petition must show that U.S. premises have been secured, that the founder has one continuous year with the Canadian company and will be an executive or manager, and that the U.S. entity will support the role within the year. The Canadian company must continue operating. The founder must also decide whether the U.S. entity needs an executive immediately or whether the work can wait until premises, staffing, and funding are credible on paper. A new-office filing is not a permission to arrive and personally deliver every service indefinitely. Its plan should identify the early operational tasks, the people who will take them over, and the point at which the founder's work becomes primarily executive or managerial. That choice drives the lease, hiring budget, and the evidence preserved for the extension.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What a new-office petition must prove up front
- The one-year approval and the extension test
- Keep the Canadian company alive and the family in order
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's guide: a staffing-agency owner choosing between L-1A and E-2
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's owner of a home-care staffing agency can reach the United States either by having her Canadian company open a U.S. subsidiary and transferring herself as L-1A executive, or by personally buying a U.S. home-care franchise under E-2. The first depends on the corporate relationship and her year of employment; the second on her own funds at risk and control. The question to put to the accountant and the lawyer is which structure the ownership already supports. The central decision is whose enterprise and whose employment history will carry the case. An L-1A plan relies on a continuing qualifying relationship and a completed foreign-employment period; an E-2 plan relies on the investor's treaty nationality, ownership or control, committed personal capital, and a real business that is not marginal. A household should not blend the best facts of two different structures. Put each route on its own page, list the documents it needs, and choose the one whose facts can be true at filing and in the first year after arrival.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Two structures, two sets of facts
- Questions for the accountant
- Questions for the lawyer, and how to sequence
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's family guide: a self-employed spouse and a child turning 21
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's household in which the principal will hold L-1B, the spouse runs a bookkeeping practice from home and the elder child is 20 has three separate immigration questions, not one. The L-2 spouse may work incident to status and can continue the practice from the United States. The 20-year-old will lose L-2 status at 21 regardless of the parent's remaining time and needs an independent basis. The younger child may study and not work.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The spouse's practice under L-2
- The child who is 20
- The younger child, school and the family's shared clock
Portugal Cove-St. Philip's guide: what is recoverable when comparing EB-5 with the Gold Card
A Portugal Cove-St. Philip's couple who have sold a family fishing enterprise and its licences and are weighing EB-5 against the Gold Card should compare the two on what happens to the money. EB-5 capital is invested at risk in an enterprise that must create ten jobs and may be returned when the investment ends; the Gold Card gift is paid to the Department of Commerce for deposit in a separate U.S. Treasury fund and is not returned. Both lead to permanent residence only through an immigrant category with its own requirements, admissibility and visa availability.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Two very different uses of the sale proceeds
- Risk of loss versus certainty of loss
- Jobs, engagement and the immigrant category underneath