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.
West Lincoln TN guide: describe a limited weekly assignment accurately
A part-time offer should show its actual professional work and terms. Inflating the schedule does not improve the evidence and can obscure what the employer really needs.
TN may concern qualifying prearranged full-time or part-time professional work. Identify the employer, duties, compensation and temporary period. Hypothetical example: an employer requires a defined analysis on a limited schedule. Explain that task rather than inventing a full-time operational role.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- State the actual arrangement
- Preserve the profession and qualification analysis
- Separate compatible schedules from compatible permissions
West Lincoln guide: start with the principal’s nationality rather than the employer’s location
An offer from a U.S. business does not establish which citizenship-dependent route is available. Identify the principal’s actual nationality and the proposed work before selecting a category.
Canadian permanent residence is not Canadian citizenship. A Canadian address and a U.S. employer letter do not themselves establish TN nationality eligibility. The principal must be Canadian or Mexican and meet the actual professional conditions.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate residence, citizenship and the offer
- Do not transfer the TN rule to every route
- Keep relatives’ requirements individual
West Lincoln E-2 guide: tracing where the investment money came from and how it moved
Lawful source of funds is a documentary question, and it is answered with a chain rather than a statement. Every dollar of qualifying capital should be traceable from how it was earned, through the account that held it, to the enterprise that received it. Build that chain before signing anything, because the weakest link is almost always a transfer nobody kept a record of.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Follow the money in one continuous chain
- Which borrowing counts, and which does not
- Traced capital still has to meet every other condition
West Lincoln L-1 guide: show how an essential function will be supported at launch
A new-office function-manager proposal should explain the operation behind the role. The title alone does not show who will perform the function’s daily tasks while the transferee manages it.
Explain the specific essential function, senior authority and actual execution arrangements. Hypothetical example: several teams perform tasks while the transferee directs the function. Identify that division honestly. A function manager must primarily manage rather than perform the function; direct-report numbers alone do not decide the case.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Define the function and its operating support
- Use the actual new-office requirements
- Keep the transfer evidence complete
West Lincoln guide: an ownership stake can help one route and complicate the other
Being offered equity in the U.S. entity you are transferring into looks like good news for both routes. For E-2 a minority stake is usually too small to establish control; for L-1 a substantial stake brings additional evidence about temporary service and the assignment that follows. Work out what the stake is for before it is signed, not afterwards.
Hypothetical example: a group offers a candidate a transfer into its U.S. entity and, in the same conversation, a fifteen per cent shareholding in it. L-1 remains the employer's petition and still turns on the same facts: a qualifying relationship between the entities as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, both actively doing business, and one continuous full-time year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years before filing, where brief U.S. trips do not necessarily break continuity and U.S. days earn no credit toward the year. The U.S. role has to satisfy its own category test as well — primarily managerial or executive for L-1A, and where that claim rests on charge of an essential function, the transferee must manage the function rather than principally perform the work of it. The shareholding changes none of those requirements. Where an applicant is an owner or major stockholder, the file is expected to address that the U.S. service is temporary and that a foreign assignment will follow, so the equity becomes something to explain rather than something to rely on.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What the stake does to the L-1 case
- What the same stake does to the E-2 case
- Decide which case the stake is meant to serve
West Lincoln family guide: do not derive dependent work rights from the principal’s hours
A household may plan to divide paid work around a part-time professional assignment. The principal’s schedule does not determine a spouse’s employment permission.
TD does not authorize employment, including remote work performed while physically in the United States. A qualifying E or L spouse may work incident to valid status with appropriate evidence. Dependent children do not receive that spousal benefit. The household’s preferred division of income does not change these rules.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the actual category and activities
- Keep time available separate from permission
- Track study and individual status conditions
- Respect the order of immigrant entry
West Lincoln investor guide: how long each framework keeps the money committed
One framework asks for an investment that must stay at risk and later be shown to have created jobs. The other asks for a payment that leaves permanently and buys no ownership at all. Before comparing headline figures, compare how long each keeps money beyond the household’s reach, and what, if anything, can still be undone afterwards.
Hypothetical example: a household maps a five-year budget and asks at which point each route stops being reversible. Under EB-5 that point arrives early. Capital must be lawfully sourced, traceable and placed genuinely at risk in the new commercial enterprise, and it must be sustained rather than repaid on a schedule. Contractual rights to repayment of the investor’s capital and guaranteed rates of return are excluded from qualifying capital for precisely that reason. An enterprise’s option to buy back the interest solely at its own discretion falls within a statutory exception, still subject to sustainment and every other governing condition, and it is not an entitlement the investor may call upon. The investor must also engage in management or policy formulation, which qualifying limited-partnership rights can satisfy without daily operation.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 keeps capital exposed, and returns it in evidence rather than cash
- The Gold Card payment leaves and does not come back
- The figures and the residence stages, kept apart
- What neither framework decides