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Working In and Around the US of A?

Posted by Cliff on from the playing-with-green-cards dept.

jackda asks: "Like many out there I (an Engineer from Canada now in Massachusetts) am working in the US on the TN-1 visa. It has and continues to be a frustrating process both obtaining the visa, as well as obtaining information on working as a visa holder, in the US. I have received a very mixed bag of info from the US/CDN Consolate down to the border cross/INS people. I am just wondering if the collective minds of Slashdot could offer any tips, sources or info on anything from SSNs, to taxes, to resident/employment status, to any useful knowledge about living for a TN visa holder."

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Concrete advice, but moral support by twilight30 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I used to work as a customs officer on the Canadian side and often helped my colleagues in Immigration with US personnel coming north. As such I can't really offer you concrete advice but here are some tips -- I live in Europe now (dual citizenship: get it if you can), so feel free to take all of this with a big hunk of salt.

    The consulates never talk to customs/immigration people except at higher levels, and as a result bureaucracy will always win out in the end. Moreover the Cdn consulate in the US is in no position to offer you any real information or help on what you will find with the US customs/INS people on the front line, despite what they will say.

    Your best bet is to go to your firm -- it is supposed to have legal staff (after all, they got you down there in the first place, right?) who are supposed to know about this. Use the legal staff, it's their job. Also, go to the USINS website and rummage around for TN visa information. The latter is not really a solution, it's more of a palliative; however, more information doesn't hurt.

    When I used to work for a dotbomb in 2000 (in Vancouver) I ended up looking at immig. issues for a group of tech staff from Mexico who needed to go to the US. I could not have done it without our immigration lawyer, and I was more familiar with the subject than just about everyone else in the firm. They may not be able to surmount the actual issues, but they should be able to tell you -- in clear language -- what paperwork you need, what the employer has to provide, and what the immigration people expect to see.

    Good luck to you.

    --
    ========================================
    Death will come, and will have your eyes
    -- Pavese
  2. Working under TN Status by markh100 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I too work in the United States as a Candian citizen under TN Status. The best source of information about the process for me was the Grasmick message boards: http://grasmick.com/board/?topic=topic1 This site also offers an entire 500 page book on the subject, although I haven't personally looked at it: http://www.grasmick.com/handbook.htm (Grasmick's TN Handbook for Canadians)