Getting a TN at the Mexico border

Buenos Dias fellow canucks. I live in Tucson, Arizona, so when I switched jobs and needed to switch from my H1B to a TN, I consulted a well know immigration specialist law firm in the US. Since I l...

Canadian Expatriate and Travellers Forum Index -> Canadians in the USA -> US Visas and Immigration

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boydstowe
New Member

Joined: 05 Dec 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Tucson

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:51 pm

Buenos Dias fellow canucks.

I live in Tucson, Arizona, so when I switched jobs and needed to switch from my H1B to a TN, I consulted a well know immigration specialist law firm in the US. Since I live only 50 miles from a major border crossing (Nogales, Arizona), I wanted to get my TN there, thus avoiding a long flight to Toronto or Vancouver, et al.

The immigration specialist urged me not to get one at a Mexican border crossing as it was "unlikely an agent would have much experience processing Canadian TN's" Even though I'm almost a perfect match under NAFTA for a Computer Systems Analyst.

I decided to go to Nogales anyways, and the process couldn't have been easier. I parked my car, walked across, turned around and walked straight back. The guy went through my paper work and issued the TN without even asking any questions.

Of course, this was not what I was prepared for given the "advice" I had received, so I asked the agent if he got many Canadians requesting TN's. His reply. "Man I get every kind of Canadian visa you can imagine. S's L's H1B's TN's whatever"

The moral of the story: Have all your paper work straight, be polite, don't cop an attitude and only provide the information asked for. The US border patrol is every bit as experienced and qualified on the Mexico side as they are on the Canadian side. They don't see as many, but in a major POE, they see enough to be familiar with them.

I had an excellent letter of reference, letter of offer and petition for a TN from my employer. I've attached them so you can use them as a template. (details are blocked out)

Boyd

December 13, 2007

Mr. Bob Mackenzie
Any street
Pasadena, Newfoundland
Canada A0L 1K0

Dear Beer drinker,

Expensive IT Solutions is pleased to confirm our offer of employment as a Senior Computer Systems Analyst, reporting directly to me, working in Tucson, Arizona. Upon receipt of this offer, your acceptance is due within five (5) business days, and your start date will be on or before Insert Date. If the listed start date is acceptable to you, or should it be necessary to change your start date, please confirm the date on the line provided below your signature.

As previously discussed, your base salary will be $1,000,000 (US $) per month. As an exempt employee, you will not be paid overtime for hours in excess of forty in one week.

As you know, and we have discussed, this position is conditional upon the granting of TN-1 status, and you know that this position is therefore temporary for that reason. Enclosed with this offer of employment, please also find our petition letter to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service with further details to that effect.

Please return one signed copy of this offer letter to me as soon as possible.

On your first day, call me via telephone at our corporate phone number by 10AM EST.

I very much look forward to working with you and applying your significant technical and customer implementation expertise against both the existing, as well as potential future customers of our client companies.
Sincerely,
Doug Mackenzie
President/ Chief Beer Drinker
Expensive IT Solutions

Encl: INS Petition Letter

December 11, 2007

To whom it may concern,

Consistent with NAFTA Chapter 16, Annex 1603, Appendix 1603.d.1, Expensive IT Solutions LLC (EI TS) wishes to support the TN visa on behalf of Mr. Bob Mackenzie, a Canadian citizen, to serve as Senior Computer Systems Analyst (Job Title) for our company and our associated clients. We would like to offer this position for an initial period of one year (anticipated to be from Insert Date MAKE IT FOR ONE YEAR ONLY), and request that you grant him entry under TN status. This position is conditional upon the granting of such TN status to Mr. Mackenzie. Mr. Mackenzie understands the temporary nature of this position, and that he must leave the USA when his services are no longer required or his status otherwise expires.

The Petitioner

Expensive IT Solutions LLC was established in May 2007 to provide highly customized technical, marketing and sales consulting and software re-sales services and expertise to our contracted clients worldwide. Our specific area of expertise is in the area of Computer Systems “Performance Analysis and Capacity Planning”. This discipline has become increasingly important as computing infrastructures have become increasingly complex and distributed due to technologies such as the Internet, and more recently Virtualization.

EITS Clients include:

Ø companies delivering consulting and technical implementation services to end customers worldwide,
Ø companies selling software solutions they have built to end customers world wide
Ø companies reselling software from Buy More Code Software to end customers world wide

Working with our contracted Clients, we already have 18 end-customer Clients, across United States, France, United Kingdom and other countries, and our combined profits are conservatively estimated at $300,000.00 for the current calendar year 2007. We also have sufficiently identified client contracts and opportunities in our business pipeline and plan to strongly support our 2008 estimated net operating revenues of $500,000, including a four month backlog of Client technical engagements requiring the services of Mr. Mackenzie in this position. As this position will be both base salary, plus customer technical engagement related bonus, it is therefore largely “self funding” under our business plan.

EITS consulting services directly relate to ensuring our client customers, as well as the software we sell and/or integrate on their behalf will successfully and profitably support their business application environments in a cost effective fashion. Because today’s customer business applications rely on very complex, interconnected components spanning computer system hardware and software, storage, and networks; these customers are looking to companies such as EI TS to ensure these complex networks and computer systems can be planned accurately and cost-effectively, integrated to perform in an optimal fashion, and continue to be improved over their investment life-cycle.

Anticipated length of stay: Insert Dates. MAKE THEM FOR ONLY 1 YEAR.

Applicant Activities

Mr. Mackenzie, functioning as a Senior Computer Systems Analyst, will be responsible for delivery of paid technical consulting services to EITS client companies and their specific end customers (together: Clients). Specifically, he will be responsible to meet and work with Clients and prospective Clients to:

Ø Analyze Client requirements, and document and develop optimized performance analysis and capacity planning needs

Ø Analyze Client business objectives, jointly planning and assisting Clients with their adoption of computer technology (both hardware and software) to map those requirements to specific computer resource requirements over Client business cycles.

Ø Communicate, impart, and embed his ITIL Capacity Planning expertise into the Computer System solutions he architects and implements for Clients.

Ø Create Computer System “capacity plans” for Client acquisition of new computer system infrastructure. This includes studying existing IT computer hardware and software resources, gathering resource utilization data, and providing input on potential improvement choices Clients face for modification to such hardware and software infrastructure.

Normal Place of Employment

We anticipate that Mr. Mackenzie can successfully perform the duties expected of this position working out of his office in Tucson Arizona, where many tasks and activities on behalf of Clients will be done via remote telecommunications. He will also be required to travel to end-client locales for a variety of purposes (Client information acquisition, planning meetings and tasks, technical implementation tasks not capable of being done remotely, etc.). Since his services are billable to our Clients, he will not be responsible to fund his travel expenses.

Remuneration: $1,000,000.00 US Dollars per month + Client-specific performance bonuses

In our opinion, Mr. Mackenzie’s background uniquely qualifies him for this position and the duties he will be performing for us on behalf of our Clients. His education background meets the minimum requirements for this position of a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Science. More importantly to EITS, for the last 8 years at BuyMoreCode Software, Inc., he has been performing precisely these same tasks and duties for hundreds of their client customers. As the business of EITS is delivering these services to end customers, many of whom are also BuyMoreCode end customers, his educational background (with extensive hardware and software training), knowledge of the Clients and their environments, as well as hands-on experience with these types of customers and their technical and business needs are a perfect fit for “day 0” productivity to successfully grow our business.

If you should have any questions about this position, please call me (Mr. Doug Mackenzie) at 53378008.

Signed:
Date:

Doug Mackenzie
President/Chief Beer Drinker
Expensive IT Solutions LLC
145 Molson’s Way
Boston, MA 01740

Steven
CanuckAbroad VIP