Upcoming TN Status Application

T

Theaku98

New Member
I am a Canadian citizen with a job offer from a US tech firm in California under the occupation of Graphic Design.
The employer has hired a lawyer who is writing up the TN letter.
I more or less have the originals of everything required as proof of competency ( Gradute's Diploma in Visual Journalism, Good luck to me) and made copies to be able to hand them over after showing the originals.

I am going a week before (October 10) from the actual start date (October 16) to be able to look for a place to stay near work.
The lawyer then mentioned that she has to change the start date to October 10 in the TN letter because I cannot seek TN status if I am entering by over a day from my actual start date (exception is the weekend, if your start date is on a Monday) in my case it is not.

I now realized that optimized processing for first time Canadian TN status applicants at Montreal's international airport only occurs on Tuesday, Thursdays and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. My flight is at 7:18 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I can't cancel it or change the time. The job is in San Francisco, my ticketed destination is LA. I was planning to drive to San Francisco the next day as I will have a rental car.

Will I have problems with the CBP officer?
Can I drive to the Champlain Port of Entry the day before (Tuesday, October 9), get my TN status, cross back into Canada on the same day so I can take my flight the next day? The lawyer said if I plan to do that, that I should not mention it to the CBP officer. Can someone tell me what's the issue and what kind of questioning will I face from the CBP officer at the airport if I do in fact drive to get my TN status the day before?

Thank you!
O.S.S.
 
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The lawyer is being too strict on the date thing, however, regardless, you would only get 3 years from date of entry. The better way is to simply ask for 3 years, without a starting date.

They will process you at YUL, regardless of time, if there is a flight to US. I would not bother going to Champlain (they could or could not process you depending on mood), but if you did, you would face no issues at airport next day.
 
Thank you Nelsona.

I have asked the lawyer to request for a 3 year TN status regardless of the actual employment length, since it gets absolved anyways once the job under my specific title is terminated. As for not bothering to go to Champlain, would you give me insight as to why they would not process me depending on mood?

I will give an update here next week, whether or not it goes well if anybody is interested.
 
The key is without starting date.

As to entry, they could ask "Are you going to work today", and your truthful answer may lead them to say to get it when you are going to work. Not much of a risk, but nor is going top the airport at 6:00 am. You will be processed there.

As always, focus less on the process, and more on the quality of your petition.
 
Nelsona, I just received my TN package from said lawyer and it delves quite a bit into my qualifications, if I remember reading your prior posts this is quite unnecessary in the TN letter, is it not? In fact, it is very repetitive with quite a few mistakes. It seems this lawyer just took a copy past sample off of Google and filled in some blanks.

The reason for which she is doing this is that she is afraid my application is not straightforward (whose is these days) because my post-baccalaureate degree is in Visual Journalism and the occupation is Graphic Design.
 
Don't know what to tell you. lawyers don't make good TN packages unless that is their specialty (Zuccaro, Grasmick).

You are stuck with what you got. If it fails, then you can yell....
 
nelsona said:
The better way is to simply ask for 3 years, without a starting date.
Click to expand...
Have you seen support / offer letters which do not have a desired start date?
What do they say in lieu... "As soon as possible" or similar?

I was denied (and told to come back) when my letter's start date was 2 weeks into the future. 1 week into the future feels like the most officers would tolerate. 3 days feels like a safe amount of time.
 
The letter is dated, but simply asks for status for maximum 3 years. Mine had no starting date.
 
I had the same issue as to the start date, my letter simply said “Mr Smith is to report to our company upon his admission to the U.S.” ... the officer didn’t seem to have any issue with that wording.
 
Yea... nope...
No luck here with any of that.

The company and the lawyer have taken none of my recommendations.
They requested 18 months instead of 3 years.
I highlighted all the mistakes in the letter drafted by the lawyer, from mistakes such as in my name to claiming a petition for engineering instead of Graphic Design and delving into great detail about my qualifications unnecessarily.

Finally, they didn't take the recommendation of an open date to entry such as “Mr Smith is to report to our company upon his admission to the U.S.”

My flight is on Wednesday morning as mentioned, it is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, so no mail circulation on Monday, let's hope that the overnight shipping with a private mail company gets me that letter by Tuesday.

The rest of my luck falls on the border guard I will encounter.

Wish me luck, seems that I will definitely need it with this poorly drafted letter.
Thanks for all your help and recommendations hope it helps someone else in this situation.
 
Companies seem beholden to letters written by incompetent lawyers for a variety of reasons.
Depending on your relationship with the company, you can sometimes get them to sign the letter you draft instead.

Let us know how it goes.
 
grant2 said:
Companies seem beholden to letters written by incompetent lawyers for a variety of reasons.
Depending on your relationship with the company, you can sometimes get them to sign the letter you draft instead.

Let us know how it goes.
Click to expand...
Hey what was the final outcome? Please share your experience.
 
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