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.
Reconcile an agency's and a client's descriptions before finalizing a TN letter
Before an employer drafts a support letter, identify precisely what the file needs to establish: citizenship, a genuinely identified professional position, and the qualification the listed occupation actually requires. Where a staffing agency and an end client are both involved, resolve any difference between their descriptions of the work first. That produces a file a reviewer can test, without letting two accounts of the same job quietly diverge.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Start with the two accounts of the same assignment
- Keep employer facts and credential facts on separate tracks
- Resolve any discrepancy before anyone signs
Treat citizenship and Canadian status as two separate facts for each person
A Canadian permanent resident card establishes a Canadian immigration status, not Canadian citizenship. A Windsor-area household can include a Canadian citizen and a person who holds only Canadian permanent residence, even if that second person is a Mexican national — and that second person's route depends on their own nationality and documents, not on living at the same address.
Hypothetical example: one partner is a Canadian citizen, while the other holds Canadian permanent residence and Mexican citizenship, with a Canadian citizenship application still pending. Record the pending application as pending. The Mexican citizenship may support a TN route through its own applicable process, and it is not the same fact as the Canadian permanent residence — one does not substitute for the other, and neither is created by the household's shared Canadian address.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Record what is actually established today for each person
- Assess each opportunity under its own actual requirements
- Keep the applicable procedure and Canadian obligations both visible
Read a staged buyout of a retiring owner as a set of conditions, not a fixed price
A funding balance, seller-financing terms, and a signed purchase agreement can describe entirely different stages of the same transaction. Map out the real proposed commitment and its conditions before concluding what the E-2 record actually establishes. The investment and the operating enterprise need to be reviewed together, with nationality and control kept clearly in view throughout.
Hypothetical example: a Windsor-area buyer is acquiring a retiring owner's professional-services practice through a staged buyout, with part of the price paid at closing and the remainder financed by the seller over several years. Read each payment trigger, and what happens to control and ownership at each stage, carefully. Seller financing can be structured in different ways, and the label 'buyout' alone does not answer whether the actual terms meet the applicable substantiality and control requirements at each stage — coordinate transactional and immigration review before signing.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what happens if a milestone in a staged buyout is not met
- Trace where the closing funds originate and identify any security
- Describe the actual enterprise beyond the purchase price
Keep the new-office plan and the operation that actually develops as two records
For an L-1A new office, the initial proposal has to explain an operation capable of supporting a managerial or executive role within one year of approval. Keep the submitted plan intact as a record and separately track what actually develops afterward, including any delay to a planned hire. Extension preparation needs evidence of the real business and role, not simply a revised version of the original forecast.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Describe the resources actually supporting the launch
- Record any material change as it actually happens
- Prepare the extension from what actually happened
Compare a manager's transfer and a personal franchise purchase without mixing their facts
An L-1 transfer and an E-2 investment need to be compared using the actual arrangement each would require. Do not borrow one proposal's employment history and pair it with another proposal's ownership or funding as if the result were a single established option. Build two complete, separate descriptions first, then identify what remains unresolved in each.
Hypothetical example: a Windsor-area manager at a Canadian company's U.S. affiliate could either transfer there in a managerial capacity, or personally buy an unrelated franchise location instead. For each option, show the ownership picture before and after the proposed transaction. Identify who has authority to change the terms and which documents are actually final — a shared commercial goal does not make an affiliate transfer and an independent franchise purchase the same kind of legal event.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Draw out the entities involved in each proposal separately
- Describe what the applicant would actually do under each route
- Compare the commitments and the household consequences side by side
Give a stepchild's relationship evidence its own review, not a borrowed assumption
A shared move can involve genuinely different employment, study, relationship, and arrival plans for each person. Record everyone's citizenship, relationship, age, and intended activity before assuming that one person's status automatically supplies every permission the household needs — a blended family in particular needs each relationship documented on its own terms.
Hypothetical example: a Windsor-area applicant's household includes a biological child and a stepchild from a spouse's earlier marriage. TD, L-2, or E-2 dependent status for a stepchild generally requires evidence of the qualifying stepparent-stepchild relationship, which is a different evidentiary question than a birth certificate alone answers for a biological child. Gather the marriage record establishing the step-relationship and confirm the child's age and marital status separately — do not assume the same document set that worked for one child will automatically cover the other. For the ordinary immigration stepchild definition, the marriage creating the relationship must have occurred before the child turned 18. Check that date separately from the under-21 and unmarried requirements for the dependent category.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Document a stepchild's relationship separately from a biological child's
- Treat remote work as work, not as a footnote
- Work out the consequence of a date actually changing
Compare a grandparent's job-creating investment and a pure gift on their own terms
EB-5 and Gold Card describe genuinely different financial and legal frameworks. EB-5 concerns qualifying capital and U.S. job creation; the official Gold Card FAQ describes a gift-based process leading toward EB-1 or EB-2 permanent residence for eligible successful applicants, subject to admissibility and visa availability. Compare the actual requirements rather than treating two dollar figures as prices for the same outcome, especially where one relative is proposing to fund the plan for the whole family.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Ask what the money is actually meant to accomplish for each grandchild
- Check each grandchild's eligibility and timing individually
- Keep financial due diligence and immigration review on independent tracks