TN or H1B?,while GC under proccess for future employment (consular proccessing)

[gafadis]

Hello Everybody,
I need some information, I am a Canadian Citizen, living and working in Canada.
A company in US filed for my GC in EB3, labor approved in 2006, PD January 2003 and I-140 filed in January 2007 waiting for approval.
At this point of time,
i.) Can I work in the US for the same company who filed for my GC or any other company in the US while GC under process.
ii.) If yes, which status is better not jeopardizing the GC process. Is is H1B or TN.
If TN is ok, are there any limitations or conditions.

Please respond immediately as you know we have H1B deadline.

Thanks very much

 

[nelsona]

1. yes, you can work for anyone in US, until the GC is approved. Then you must work for your sponsor.
2. You can work and enter on TN. Since you are not filing I-485, you are not subject to immig intent rules until you go for your final GC interview. That said, H1 is alaways better than TN during this process. Trouble is H1 is not easy to get these days due to quotas.

Your H1 had better be close to being completed (ie LCA done, papers ready to be sent FRIDAY) since teh quota is bound to be reached either the 2nd or 3rd of April.

 

[DBEL]

H1 is definitely better then TN.

Considering your PD isn’t current and the dates haven’t moved in many months I think you’ll be waiting for a few more years before you get a Green Card.

Technically you can work under a TN. I’m assuming your job and you fit the profile. However if you expect to travel back and forth between Canada and the US then you should expect that your immigrant petition will show up on the system. What the officer makes of it is not as clear.

I think you will find lots of anecdotal story about this. Whether the petition in itself disturbs the officer or simply prompts questions that require careful answers. Bottom line you are more likely to be a target of questioning.

If you started out in a TN and had an approved H1 for October, you would have a very good argument that your TN status is temporary and less then a year.

 

[nelsona]

Note that immig intent is viewed differently by CBP if one is doing consular processing as opposed to AOS (I-485). Since consular processing, by definition, requires at least one final departure from US before interview, the officer has no reason to think that the person is a risk to 'imigrate' on that particular entry.

It's a subtle difference, and one that we might thing too subtle for border monkeys to understand, but they seem to all subcribe to it.