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Welland TN guide: what each document in a TN file is actually proving

A TN file is a set of separate proofs, not one persuasive document. Citizenship, the listed professional activity, that activity’s own qualification standard, the employer’s temporary offer and any ownership interest are each established by different paper. Sort the file by the question each item answers, and the gaps in it become visible before an officer finds them.

Hypothetical example: an accountant is offered a fourteen-month financial reporting role with a U.S. subsidiary and forwards a résumé, a degree parchment and a signed offer. Those three items answer three different questions, and none of them answers all three. Citizenship as a Canadian or Mexican national is shown by a passport or citizenship certificate, never by a résumé. The USMCA Appendix 2 listing decides whether the work is a professional activity covered by the classification at all. The offer decides duties, employer, remuneration and the temporary period the work will occupy. Label every item with the question it settles, then look for the questions that have nothing filed against them. Doing that inventory early is what turns a thin file into a complete one.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Sort the file by the question each paper answers
• Match the credential to the listing’s own standard
• Show who employs, who owns and how admission is sought

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Welland guide: a professional licence does not establish Canadian citizenship

A Canadian permanent resident may hold valuable professional credentials. Those qualifications can be relevant to a U.S. proposal without supplying the nationality required by a particular route.

Hypothetical example: an applicant brings a Canadian professional licence and residence card. TN requires Canadian or Mexican citizenship as well as the listed professional qualifications. The licence does not itself establish citizenship.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Identify nationality and credentials separately
• Assess other pathways using their own conditions
• Keep the actual proposal visible

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Welland E-2 guide: franchise and licence terms measured against develop and direct

A franchise agreement hands the operator a system and hands the franchisor a long list of approval rights. E-2 still asks whether this investor develops and directs the enterprise. Read the agreement for what the operator decides alone, price the whole cost of entry rather than the fee alone, and confirm the money is irrevocably committed and genuinely at risk.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Separate brand standards from decision rights
• Price the whole entry, not just the franchise fee
• Prove the business is real, operating and more than marginal

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Welland L-1 guide: plan a new office around the first extension, not the first approval

A new-office petition buys one year. The harder question is what the file will look like when that year is nearly spent and an extension has to show the operation the plan described. Decide at the outset which promises must have become a lease, a payroll record and a real reporting line by then, and put dates against each of them.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Write the extension file before filing the first petition
• Keep the L-1A and L-1B tests apart
• Keep the qualifying history and the relationship intact

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Welland guide: choosing between L-1 and E-2 when length of stay is the real question

Both routes can put the same person into the same U.S. business. They part company on how long that can last. L-1A stay is capped at seven years and L-1B at five, and moving between entities in the group does not reset either cap. E-2 can be extended for as long as the enterprise and the investment keep qualifying, but it opens no direct path to permanent residence.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Ask what year six looks like
• The L-1 side is the company’s case
• The E-2 side is the individual’s case

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Welland family guide: the dates that decide a family’s options

Family planning inside an immigration file is largely arithmetic. A child’s twenty-first birthday, the order in which people are admitted, the date a qualifying relationship existed and the date a category becomes current each settle something no letter can argue around. Put every one of the family’s dates on a single page before choosing between a staged move and a single one.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Put every date on one page first
• Dependent status is not a shared permission
• Immigrant routes count relationships, not intentions
• Sequence the arrivals around the rule, not the preference

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Welland investor guide: identify who can demand repayment before trusting an exit promise

Read an exit forecast beside the clause that creates a payment right. A projected commercial result, a contractual obligation and an official immigration decision answer different questions.

Hypothetical example: an offering slide says the investor can exit after an expected refinancing. Ask which signed provision, if any, lets the investor compel repayment and whether the return rate is guaranteed. EB-5 excludes contractual investor repayment rights and guaranteed rates of return from qualifying capital. A buyback option exercisable solely at the enterprise’s discretion has a statutory exception subject to sustainment and all other applicable conditions. A reassuring projection cannot convert an investor repayment entitlement into discretionary company action.

WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS

• Find the operative clause behind protected capital
• Test what the offering establishes beyond an exit
• Price a government gift as a different commitment
• Assign each promise to the party that can actually fulfill it

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