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 diploma-plus-experience route for a medical laboratory technologist: which three documents carry it
Hypothetical example: a Champlain medical laboratory technologist holds a three-year college diploma rather than a bachelor's degree and has an offer from a U.S. hospital laboratory. Medical Laboratory Technologist is listed for TN with two routes: a baccalaureate, or a post-secondary diploma or certificate plus three years of experience. Her case rests on three documents, the diploma with its transcript, a dated experience record confirmed by employers, and the hospital's letter, and each must meet a definition rather than a general impression.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The diploma must meet the regulation's definition, not just be called one
- The experience record must add up to three years of the profession
- The hospital letter must describe a technologist's job and the credential route claimed
A permanent resident who is a French citizen: E-2 on his own passport, TN never
Hypothetical example: a Champlain permanent resident is a French citizen who runs a small construction firm and is considering a U.S. venture. TN requires Canadian or Mexican citizenship, so it is closed to him until he naturalises, and a PR card does nothing for it. E-2, however, tests treaty nationality, and France is a treaty country, so he may qualify as an investor on his own passport without waiting for Canadian citizenship. L-1 and EB-5 ignore nationality altogether. Each route asks a different question of the same person.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- TN: the passport question is the first and only question that matters here
- E-2: France is a treaty country, so his nationality opens the route now
- L-1 and EB-5: nationality is irrelevant, so the other facts decide
A small freight brokerage as an E-2 enterprise: proportionality when the business needs little capital
Hypothetical example: a Champlain trucking owner wants to buy a small U.S. freight brokerage, a business with few assets, a modest purchase price and revenue that depends on relationships. E-2 measures whether the investment is substantial by proportion to the total cost of establishing or buying that business, not by an absolute figure, so a low-cost business demands that the investor fund most or all of it. Marginality is then the harder question, because a brokerage that supports only the buyer's family, with no employees, may fail it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Substantiality is a proportion, and for a cheap business the proportion must be high
- Marginality is where a one-person brokerage usually fails
- Commit the money, keep control, and keep the trucking company out of it unless it is the investor
The first year of a U.S. sales and service office: what to do in months one to twelve
Hypothetical example: a Champlain grain-handling and feed equipment company has signed a lease for a U.S. sales and service office and wants to send its sales director to open it. Because the U.S. entity has not been doing business for a year, the L-1A petition is a new-office petition: approved for one year, on evidence that premises are secured and that the operation will support a managerial position within twelve months. This guide is written as a month-by-month plan, because the extension at the end of the year is decided by what the office actually did.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Before filing: entity, lease, ownership and the director's own year
- Months one to six: hire, invoice, and record the shift from doing to managing
- Months seven to twelve: prepare the extension while the year is still running
A wood-pellet producer's choice: transfer the production manager or have the owner invest in a U.S. distributor
Hypothetical example: a Champlain wood-pellet producer wants a U.S. presence. Option one is to form a U.S. subsidiary and transfer its production manager under L-1A to set up and run it. Option two is for the owner personally to invest in an existing U.S. distributor and apply for E-2. The two options have different applicants, different deciding documents and different futures: L-1A is the company's petition for an employee and turns on his year abroad and managerial role; E-2 is the owner's own application and turns on her nationality, at-risk funds and control.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Option one: the company petitions for the manager
- Option two: the owner invests and applies in her own name
- Decide by who should be in the United States and which facts already exist
An E-2 household where the son turns twenty-one halfway through the visa
Hypothetical example: a Champlain couple hold E-2 status through the wife's investment in a U.S. business; the husband works incident to his derivative status, and their son, now nineteen, is starting college in the United States. On his twenty-first birthday the son loses derivative eligibility whatever his parents' status, so the family's planning question is not whether but when and how he changes to a status of his own. Each person's rights are separate: the investor's, the working spouse's and the student's.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The son: change status before the birthday, not after
- The husband: broad work rights that end when hers do
- The investor: keep the enterprise qualifying, because everyone depends on it
Land sold to a developer: a regional-center EB-5 investment or a Gold Card gift
Hypothetical example: a Champlain farmer is selling a parcel to a residential developer and wants the proceeds to secure permanent residence in the United States for himself, his wife and their seventeen-year-old daughter. EB-5 through a regional center puts the capital at risk in a job-creating project and demands a full source-of-funds trace; the Gold Card, under its official framework, is a gift to the U.S. government plus a processing fee, not an investment. The two differ on three points that matter to this family: risk, recoverability and the evidence each demands.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Risk: EB-5 capital can be lost; the Gold Card gift is not meant to return
- Recoverability and fees: read both sets of terms before any transfer
- Evidence: a full trace for EB-5, the official page for the Gold Card, and the daughter's age for both