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.
When the degree is not called what the profession is called: a Hope planner's TN file
Hypothetical example: a Hope municipal planner is offered work with a U.S. county planning consultancy. Urban planner is a listed profession requiring a baccalaureate or licenciatura degree, and she holds one, but her parchment says environmental studies with a planning specialization. Nothing about her competence is in doubt. What the file has to do is connect a degree title to a profession title, because the officer reads both and is not obliged to assume they are the same thing. Hypothetical example: a Hope environmental designer has a degree title that does not match the U.S. employer’s proposed professional title word for word. The decision is whether her transcript and departmental letter connect the coursework to the listed profession strongly enough, or whether the employer should select a role she can document without inference.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The officer compares two words before anything else
- The job description has to be planning, not analysis about planning
- Assemble the bridge before the border, not at it
Holding citizenship and proving it are different problems for a Hope household
Hypothetical example: a Hope household where the wife was born abroad to a mother born in Canada, and the husband holds Canadian permanent residence as a South African citizen. She has never held a Canadian passport and assumes she is not Canadian; he holds a permanent-resident card and assumes he is. Both assumptions are backwards, and each produces a different problem. TN turns on citizenship and on the evidence of it, and the evidence is what takes time. Hypothetical example: a Hope software-quality manager holds Canadian permanent residence but was born in a treaty country and has an available passport from that country. The decision is to identify the nationality each route legally tests before choosing an employer, investment, or family strategy; permanent residence is not a substitute for citizenship where a route demands nationality.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A permanent-resident card is not a nationality
- Citizenship by descent exists whether or not it has been claimed
- Sequence the household around the slowest document
Franchise fees, royalties and control: what a Hope buyer is actually purchasing
Hypothetical example: a Hope tradesperson buys a U.S. commercial landscaping and snow-removal franchise. E-2 requires the principal and at least fifty percent of the enterprise to have treaty-country nationality, substantial funds irrevocably committed and at risk, a real operating enterprise that is not marginal, and ownership or other control sufficient to develop and direct it. Paid franchise fees and equipment may count; future royalties generally do not. Franchisor standards do not defeat control if the investor retains real operating authority. E-2 provides no direct path to permanent residence. Hypothetical example: a Hope custom-cabinet maker is offered a U.S. showroom franchise that requires an initial fee, display inventory, and future marketing contributions. The decision is whether the money already committed to the operating business is sufficient and protected appropriately, rather than assuming all promised future spending has the same evidentiary value.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The initial fee counts; the royalty stream generally does not
- Following a system is not the same as being run by one
- Marginality, seasonality and the second season
The order of the corporate steps before a Hope company's first U.S. petition
Hypothetical example: a Hope highway-signage and traffic-control company plans its first U.S. location. A new-office filing must establish a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate relationship, an active foreign business, and the transferee's one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the prior three years. It must show secured premises and the financial and organizational capacity to commence business and support the proposed role. Depending on the lawful structure, a qualifying U.S. or foreign employer may file; a separately incorporated U.S. company is not universal. Initial approval is limited to one year. Hypothetical example: a Hope industrial-cleaning company has found a U.S. warehouse but has not yet opened a bank account or hired a supervisor. The decision is whether to delay filing until the new office can document premises, capitalization, and a real operating plan, rather than treating a signed lease as the entire launch.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The petitioner has to exist before it can petition
- Capitalization and premises come before filing, not after approval
- Decide the classification, then write one document
Two shareholders, two passports: how nationality decides a Hope fabricator's route
Hypothetical example: a Hope welding and steel-fabrication shop is owned equally by two shareholders, one a Canadian citizen and the other a British citizen holding Canadian permanent residence. They want a U.S. presence and are weighing an intracompany transfer against a treaty-investor purchase. E-2 tests treaty nationality and any country-specific treaty limitation: the Canadian owner's 50 percent can meet the enterprise-nationality threshold, while the British owner must separately satisfy the United Kingdom treaty's inhabitancy limitation. L-1 also examines ownership and control to establish a qualifying corporate relationship, but it does not impose a citizenship requirement. Hypothetical example: a Hope commercial-insulation company is owned by a Canadian citizen and a non-treaty-national investor, while its engineering director has worked there for four years. The decision is whether to preserve that ownership and assess an intracompany transfer for the director, or change the American ownership before investing under a treaty route.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- E-2 reads the share register as a nationality document
- L-1 does not ask what passport anyone holds
- Choosing on the facts each route actually tests
The relatives a nonimmigrant category cannot bring: a Hope household's dependants
Hypothetical example: a Hope couple move on E-2 to run a U.S. business and want three other people with them: the investor's seventy-eight-year-old mother, who has lived with them for years, and the spouse's two children from an earlier marriage, aged twelve and twenty-two. Derivative status is defined narrowly, and only one of those three fits without further thought. Working out which, early, prevents a household from selling a home on an assumption. Hypothetical example: a Hope laboratory manager plans to move with a spouse, a sixteen-year-old stepdaughter, and an adult sibling who depends on the household financially. The decision is to verify the stepchild’s relationship date and arrange a separate visitor or independent plan for the sibling before making joint travel assumptions.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- A parent is not a derivative of a nonimmigrant investor
- Stepchildren can qualify, but the relationship has a date test
- The twenty-two-year-old needs a plan of her own
What each route asks a Hope couple to do after the money has moved
Hypothetical example: a Hope couple in their sixties want to spend winters in the United States and summers at home, and are comparing an EB-5 investment with the Gold Card framework. Both are usually compared on price. The more revealing comparison is what each requires of them afterwards: how involved they must be in a business, what residence obligations attach to the status obtained, and what a habit of long absences does to it. Hypothetical example: a Hope medical-device distributor has sale proceeds available and is deciding between a job-creating investment and the Gold Card framework. The decision is not merely which amount is larger: it is whether the household is prepared for investment records, job evidence, conditional residence, and permanent-residence obligations, or for the framework’s applicant-paid gift payment and connected immigrant processing.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- EB-5 expects continuing engagement, not a signature
- Permanent residence carries a residence expectation
- Write the obligations down before comparing the amounts