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.
Selwyn guide: assembling a TN file in the order an officer will read it
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn medical laboratory technologist has an offer from a U.S. hospital network and three weeks before the intended start. The file should be built in the order the questions arise — citizenship, then profession, then the qualification rule attached to that profession, then the terms of the arranged employment — because a document that answers a question nobody has reached yet does not help.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Citizenship first, in the form you will present
- Name the profession, then satisfy its own rule
- Let the employer letter answer the remaining questions
Selwyn guide: what Canadian permanent residence does and does not do
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn greenhouse operation's production manager has lived in Canada for nine years, holds permanent residence, and has been told by a U.S. employer that Canadians can simply present at the border. The advice is accurate about Canadian citizens and inaccurate about this person, and the difference determines which routes are open.
TN eligibility rests on Canadian or Mexican citizenship. A permanent resident card is evidence of status in Canada, not of nationality, and it does not open the TN category however long the holder has lived here. This matters practically because the employer's expectations are usually built on experience with citizen employees: a start date assumed to need only a border presentation, no petition, no visa appointment. For a permanent resident none of that applies, and the correct response is to identify which categories are actually available on their own nationality and circumstances, then rebuild the timeline around the one that fits.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- The TN route is closed to permanent residents
- Other routes turn on different facts
- Plan the two immigration systems as separate calendars
Selwyn guide: what actually counts as the investment, and when
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn charter and outfitting operator agrees to buy a fuel dock and marine service shop in the United States, financing part of the purchase and holding part in escrow. Deciding which of those dollars count, and on what date they count, is most of the E-2 investment analysis.
Capital qualifies when it is irrevocably committed to the enterprise and subject to partial or total loss if the business fails. Funds the buyer can still recall do not meet that description, which is why escrow terms are examined so closely. A conditional escrow that releases upon a defined event can work, provided the drafting reflects the purpose and the applicant can identify the operative clause. Money spent on the business — equipment, inventory, leasehold improvements, deposits that cannot be recovered — is generally easier to characterise than money merely earmarked, because the expenditure has already occurred and cannot be undone.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- At risk means capable of being lost
- Borrowed funds depend on what secures them
- Substantial and non-marginal are separate questions
Selwyn guide: the first twelve months of a new U.S. office
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn custom-cabinetry manufacturer opens a U.S. showroom and warehouse, transferring the person who will run it. A new-office L-1 approval runs for one year, so the petition describes a plan and the extension asks what the plan produced. Treating that year as an evidentiary period from the first day is the difference between a straightforward extension and a difficult one.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- What the initial petition has to show
- What the year has to produce
- The dates that decide the outcome
Selwyn guide: owner-manager choosing between a transfer and a treaty investment
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn mechanical contracting company is owned by the person who also runs it day to day, and a U.S. expansion is planned. Because the same individual is both the owner and the manager, both L-1 and E-2 look available, and the choice turns on which set of facts is genuinely easier to prove rather than on which sounds better.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- L-1 asks about employment history and corporate structure
- E-2 asks about capital, control and the enterprise
- Choose on evidence and duration, not on preference
Selwyn guide: each household member's own permission, on their own schedule
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn household plans a move where one spouse holds the qualifying offer, the other is a registered nurse who intends to keep working, and the elder child turns twenty-one within eighteen months. Three separate schedules are running, and only one of them belongs to the principal applicant.
What a spouse may do depends on the category. For TN, Canadian citizenship and Canadian permanent residence are separate facts; a PR card does not establish TN eligibility. A TD dependant accompanying a TN professional may live in the United States and may study, but may not work. An L-2 spouse is employment-authorized incident to status, and a qualifying E spouse likewise. In every one of these categories, dependent children may attend school but do not receive employment authorization through a parent's status. The point to settle early is what this particular spouse intends to do, because each family member's planned activity and status must be assessed on its own facts.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- Dependant status is not a work permit by default
- A licensed profession has a second gate
- Children age out on a fixed date
Selwyn guide: staged capital against a fixed payment framework
Hypothetical example: a Selwyn household expects proceeds from a business sale to arrive across two years and is weighing an EB-5 investment against the official Gold Card framework. The two create different kinds of obligation — recoverable capital at risk with a jobs requirement, against a non-recoverable gift and fee — so the comparison is about structure before it is about amount.
WHAT THIS GUIDE COVERS
- One is capital, the other is a gift
- Staged funding suits one structure better than the other
- Neither buys certainty, and one is still developing