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.
Assess the foreign degree and the practice licence separately
Orford professionals should connect actual educational records to the particular TN profession without assuming that one favourable assessment resolves every permission needed for the job. Before filing, the reader must decide whether the profession is proven by education alone or by education plus documented experience, because some listed professions require both. Choosing the wrong basis means the file is judged against a rule it cannot meet, even when the applicant is plainly competent.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Identify the relevant qualification
- Use the necessary credential evidence
- Complete the real employment proposal
- Prove the experience element with records, not reputation
- Assemble the file in the order an officer reads it
Use the actual citizenship, education and family facts
Orford residents considering US options should distinguish Canadian permanent residence from the separate requirements governing a professional, transfer or immigrant case. A mixed household must decide whether the permanent-resident spouse travels now as a dependant who cannot work, or stays in Québec until citizenship makes a TN of their own possible. That choice also decides how the family protects the Canadian PR card during the years abroad, a question U.S. law does not answer for them.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Review TN citizenship and qualifications
- Check the transfer or investment facts
- Assess immigrant requirements at the actual stage
- Plan the dependant years and the Canadian residency obligation together
- Records that keep both statuses defensible
Describe family funding according to its real obligations
Orford investors should make gift or loan descriptions consistent with the actual agreement rather than select a label to simplify the case. The reader must decide what the total cost of establishing the business really is, because substantiality is a proportion, not a sum. Counting only the franchise fee understates the denominator and flatters the ratio; counting future inventory as if already bought overstates the numerator. Both errors surface at the interview.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Establish the actual terms
- Complete the investor requirements
- Use a credible operating account
- Build the proportionality test from real invoices
- Keep the franchise agreement from undermining direction
- Follow chalet proceeds through the notary and the joint account
Count the foreign service accurately before the first-year plan
An Orford company should assess actual employment and travel dates alongside the resources needed for the new US operation. The decision that most often stalls a new-office case is where the U.S. business will physically operate. The petition must be filed with premises already secured, so the company must choose, before filing, between a lease it may not yet need and a delay it may not be able to afford.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Distinguish excluded days and continuity
- Support the qualifying role
- Document the active organizations and resources
- Secure premises that can be shown, not described
- Match the lease term to the one-year approval
Compare the actual foreign service with the actual financing
Orford applicants should distinguish a qualifying transfer from a treaty investment whose family funding may include repayment obligations. A long-serving employee who owns nothing must decide whether the U.S. role can honestly be described as primarily managerial, which L-1A demands, or whether the better fit is as an essential employee of an E-2 enterprise owned by someone else, a route that depends on the owner’s nationality and the employee’s own skills rather than on the employee’s capital.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Assess L-1 without a duration shortcut
- Assess E-2 without a funding-label shortcut
- Use the true proposal
- Test the supervisor’s duties against both employee routes
- How the two routes age differently for an employee
Review age and work permission using the actual family facts
Orford households should keep immigration eligibility separate from payment, trip duration and professional qualifications held by another family member. The decision that matters most is timing: a household must choose whether every member moves on the principal’s date or whether the spouse and an older child follow once their own permissions exist. Fixing that order early avoids a dependant arriving with no right to earn and a child with no status at 21.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Check each proposed work activity
- Assess the child’s eligibility individually
- Budget without buying an eligibility exception
- Sequence the spouse’s venture and the older child’s status
- What goes wrong when one date is assumed for everyone
Separate dated financial assumptions from family eligibility
Orford applicants comparing immigrant routes should identify which requirements depend on the actual filing and which depend on an individual family member’s case. Before any transfer, the reader must decide whether they personally meet an immigrant classification at all. EB-5 stands on the investor’s capital and jobs; Gold Card stands on the applicant’s separate EB-1 or EB-2 eligibility. A person who fits neither profile should not be comparing prices, because neither payment purchases the missing eligibility.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Confirm the EB-5 filing-date capital
- Assess Gold Card amounts and child eligibility separately
- Track the actual residence sequence
- Test eligibility before comparing what the money buys
- Trace the lodge proceeds before the project traces them for you