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.
Attribute a shared design portfolio before using it in a TN file
A French River industrial designer can make a team portfolio useful by explaining personal responsibilities, the work of other contributors and the connection to the actual U.S. offer. The aim is an accurate professional account rather than claiming the whole project.
For each selected product, describe the design problem, the applicant’s contribution and the deliverable produced. Identify engineering, production or other work performed by colleagues. Avoid using a team award or a project photograph as if it established who did every task. Keep the employer’s actual proposed duties beside these examples, including material tasks outside design.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Choose examples that show the applicant’s decisions
- Read the qualification route independently of the portfolio
- Confirm the arrangement that will use the skills
Keep the team’s qualifications separate from the applicant’s citizenship
A French River resident may have a Canadian qualification and work with Canadian colleagues while holding Canadian permanent residence. The team’s credentials and nationality cannot establish the principal applicant’s TN citizenship requirement.
Record the applicant’s own nationality, not the employer’s location or colleagues’ passports. TN requires Canadian or Mexican citizenship. Canadian permanent residence, education and professional experience do not substitute. If a Canadian citizenship process is pending, distinguish that future possibility from citizenship already held and capable of being documented.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the citizenship actually held by the proposed principal
- Find out whether another proposal has its own necessary facts
- Avoid carrying the principal’s assumption into the household plan
Identify which customer rights actually pass to the buyer
A French River buyer acquiring contracts and assets can prepare an acquisition summary showing what is effective, what remains conditional and how the enterprise will operate. This is more informative than presenting a customer count as established revenue.
Identify what the seller has agreed to provide and any conditions affecting the buyer’s ability to use it. Distinguish a contact list from an existing agreement and that agreement from a completed transfer. Use the actual signed terms and confirmations rather than declaring every customer retained. Where the parties disagree, describe the issue instead of selecting the version that produces the strongest forecast.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Separate the list, the contract and the transfer
- Trace the capital and operating authority
- Rebuild the forecast from rights and resources the business can support
Test a promotion against the foreign-role requirement for a new office
A French River employee moving from a knowledge role into management should identify whether the receiving organization is a new office before relying on the ordinary L-1A foreign-employment rule. A promotion alone cannot remove a category-specific condition.
Record the duties actually performed abroad, their dates and the proposed effective date of management authority. Establish the required continuous full-time foreign year within the relevant three years. U.S. days do not count, although qualifying brief trips need not interrupt continuity. Ordinary L-1A may rely on managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge foreign employment, but a new-office L-1A requires the qualifying foreign year specifically to be managerial or executive. Do not describe a past knowledge role as management merely because the future assignment changes.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Build the role chronology without changing historical titles
- Identify the actual U.S. operating history and role support
- Keep the continuing transfer conditions in the plan
Compare a transfer with the acquisition of customer contracts
A French River applicant may have an intercompany employment opportunity and a separate chance to acquire a business’s customer contracts. Compare the actual employer relationship with the actual investment transaction, rather than treating access to the same customers as a common immigration basis.
Establish the qualifying corporate relationship and foreign-employment record, along with the proposed managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge role. A commercial introduction, service agreement or purchased customer relationship does not itself make the organizations parent, subsidiary, affiliate or branch. Explain which organization has employed the person and how the U.S. and foreign operations will continue.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify who would employ the applicant in an L-1 case
- Identify what the applicant would own or control for E-2
- List the duties that would follow each arrangement
Identify when a financial contributor is also a family applicant
A French River household may receive help from relatives while considering an employment or investment move. List the people providing funds separately from those intending to accompany the principal, then assess each proposed activity and immigration relationship.
An eligible spouse and unmarried children under 21 may qualify under the relevant dependent or derivative framework, with applicable immigrant child-age protection assessed on actual facts. A parent or another relative does not gain a derivative place by lending money. Record who intends to move, their citizenships and the relationship evidence rather than copying every name from the funding documents into the family application. Immigrant child-age protection does not extend the ordinary age limit for TD, E or L dependent status.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify relationships without treating funding as eligibility
- Check employment plans against each person’s actual status
- Coordinate immigrant charges and travel using the actual inclusion list
Compare a borrowing plan with an employer-funded government gift
A French River applicant may consider borrowed funds for EB-5 and a corporate Gold Card commitment. Identify whose money is involved, what must be repaid and which immigration conditions remain before treating either proposal as fully funded.
Explain the lender, lawful source, genuine loan conditions and path into capital the investor actually controls and commits at risk. Apply the relevant good-faith and noncircumvention requirements without assuming every loan qualifies or fails. Current capital is US$1,050,000 generally or US$800,000 for a qualifying targeted employment area or infrastructure project, with statutory adjustments from January 1, 2027 based on petition filing date. At least ten qualifying full-time jobs per investor and managerial or policy participation remain necessary. A personal loan maturity does not entitle the investor to demand project repayment; contractual investor repayment rights and guaranteed rates of return can exclude capital from qualification.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Read the EB-5 financing and enterprise obligations together
- Identify the corporate Gold Card commitment precisely
- Separate financial deadlines from immigration outcomes