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.
Port Colborne TN guide: replace an ambiguous consulting label with the actual assignment
Before selecting a TN profession, explain what the proposed work involves and what credentials that profession requires. A consulting agreement is a commercial document; its label does not decide immigration classification.
Hypothetical example: an agreement calls a person a consultant but asks for ongoing technical production and staff supervision. Write a factual account of the work, expected results and reporting relationship. Do not recast those duties as management consulting simply because the contract uses that word.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe what the client actually needs
- Test the profession against the evidence
- Resolve the mismatch before relying on the letter
Port Colborne guide: record citizenship separately from Canadian residence
A Canadian PR card answers a residence question. It does not replace nationality evidence for a citizenship-dependent U.S. category, and it does not determine the route for every member of a household.
List the current passport nationality, Canadian immigration status and relevant U.S. record for each intended traveller. An address history can help explain where someone lived, but lengthy Canadian residence is not Canadian citizenship. A pending citizenship application should be recorded as pending.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Give each document a limited job
- Match the proposed activity to a route
- Keep a future possibility out of the present filing facts
Port Colborne E-2 guide: reconcile the purchase budget with actual commitments
An acquisition budget may combine the business price, working capital, equipment and personal reserves. Explain which amounts represent qualifying funds committed and at risk rather than treating the spreadsheet total as the legal answer.
Work down the spreadsheet one row at a time and, beside every figure, name the agreement that creates it, the party who is to receive the money, the proof that money actually moved, and whether an obligation still binds the buyer today. Quotations, pro-forma sheets and vendor projections belong in a separate column marked plainly as estimates. Hypothetical example: a row reads “packaging line — 180,000”, but the file holds only a supplier quotation, with no signed order, no deposit and no delivery date. That row records an intention, not a commitment, and cannot be carried into the qualifying total. Nor should a savings balance be pointed at as though it settled the question: a balance shows that money exists, not that it left the account and reached the enterprise.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Annotate the budget using the real records
- Read the financing and release conditions
- Test the enterprise itself, not the arithmetic
Port Colborne L-1 guide: distinguish a company’s history from the employee’s foreign year
The organization’s years in business do not prove that a particular transferee completed the required qualifying employment abroad. Build the employee’s timeline before fitting it into the U.S. launch plan.
Generally, L-1 requires one continuous qualifying year of employment abroad within the relevant preceding three years, subject to the applicable rules. Record real work locations, assignments and travel. Brief U.S. trips do not necessarily break continuity, but U.S. days are not days of qualifying employment abroad. Preserve payroll and employment records that explain the person’s own history.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with the individual’s actual dates
- Then identify the U.S. operation’s stage
- Connect the history to the proposed work
Port Colborne L-1 or E-2 guide: separate a transfer proposal from a purchase proposal
A person may describe both joining a U.S. operation and buying an interest in it. Those proposals require different evidence. Write down what will actually happen before comparing the two routes.
Take the employment proposal first and describe it without reference to the purchase. Identify the two organisations, the ownership and control that link them as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, and the evidence that both remain in business — the group has to keep trading in the United States and in at least one other country. Then set out the applicant’s own service with that group abroad: employer, dates, location, reporting line and what the work consisted of. Finally describe the position offered in the United States and the duties it carries. Acquiring shares in a company creates neither the corporate relationship nor the prior employment; it changes who owns the business from the date of closing and nothing before it. Where the applicant is an owner or a major stockholder, the file also has to address the temporary nature of the United States service and the assignment abroad that is to follow it.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Map the employment proposal on its own
- Map the investment proposal on its own
- Name the evidence gap rather than choosing by one advantage
Port Colborne family guide: separate financial support from each relative’s status
A household may share costs while its members need different immigration evidence. Identify the actual relationship, intended activity and admission status for each person; paying an expense does not confer work permission.
Distinguish accompanying, studying and working. A spouse’s contribution to a business is not itself employment authorization. TD dependents cannot work under TD status, including remote work performed while physically in the United States. Qualifying E and L spouses may be employment-authorized incident to valid status with appropriate evidence; children do not obtain that benefit solely as dependents.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe what each person intends to do
- Keep school planning linked to valid status
- Identify the actual immigrant family proposal
- Respect the order of immigrant entry
Port Colborne investor guide: identify what your own work contributes to the proposed route
An investor may intend to manage a project personally. Explain that proposed participation separately from EB-5 qualifying job creation and from the Gold Card government-gift process.
EB-5 asks the investor to engage in the management or the policy formulation of the enterprise. That engagement can be satisfied by the rights an ordinary limited partner holds under partnership law, so day-to-day operation is not universally required. What the investor personally does, however, is not employment for the purposes of the job requirement, and neither is work performed by a spouse or by children. The ten full-time positions attributable to each investor must be held by qualifying United States workers, and the evidence differs according to whether the case is filed as a standalone enterprise or through a regional centre. The money itself must be traceable to a lawful origin along a documented path, and it must stand genuinely exposed to loss. Capital does not qualify if the paperwork gives the investor a contractual right to have it returned, or promises a guaranteed rate of return; either term removes the risk the classification requires. The statute makes one narrow allowance, for an arrangement under which the enterprise may at its own discretion redeem the interest — a discretion belonging to the enterprise, still subject to the sustainment requirement and every other governing condition, and conferring nothing resembling a right to repayment.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe participation without counting it as a qualifying job
- Keep relatives separate from additional investors
- Read Gold Card instructions as a different transaction
- Set each amount against the stage it actually buys