TN visa: Is it possible to do self processing?

T

tmh203

New Member
I am a Canadian citizen and have recently relocated to California. My husband is working with TN visa, and I and our daughter are holding TD visa. My professional background is social/policy/market research. I hold an MA in Social Science from an American university and worked in Canada last six years.

I am recently having professional contacts with a number of consultants engaged in market research and grant writing. They are interested to hire me on contract-basis for small- and medium-scale projects.

My question is: Being a Canadian citizen, what are the legal provisions for me to work in the US in one or more of the following capacities:

1) As an independent market-research and grant-writing consultant.

2) As a collaborator to other US consulting companies engaged in
market-research and grant-writing.

3) As a contractor in non-profit organizations.

4) As a Research Assistant (or positions with similar
responsibilities) with US companies.

Do any of these qualify for TN visa? If "yes", Can I process the visa myself?

In other words, I would like do independent contracting and would like to process the Visa myself without any sponsor. If those are not TN qualified professions, what other options I have (Like H1B or Business visa)?

Regards

R
 
You cannot be a contractor on H1, so that is out other than for #4 (with one company)
You cannot get a TN or H1 etc, without a sponsor. Even if you submit all the docs yourself (which is what is normally done for TN, but not H1), the employer/client would still need to write the TN sponsorship letter, and for contract work EACH client would need to do so (or you would work for an agency).
Have you looked at the TN categories? Does your education and potential job match any of these categories? Nothing other than #4 jumps out as being TN qualified, and even #4 MUST be at a university, not private sector. Failing this, your option would be management consultant TN category,
 
Very sound advice Nelsona. To add to this, it would be a good idea to avoid "Management Consulting" category since it's probably one of the toughess category to apply under especially based on this profile.
 
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