To Americans: Why Concern With Immigration?

During our day to day activities, it's easy to miss the impact of immigration on our lives. But this guide takes a new angle and discusses why an natural born American citizen might use an immigration lawyer.

I OWN A BUSINESS

1) The I-9 form is a critical piece of hiring any employee. It verifies that your new hire is legally allowed to work in the United States. But few people realize the I-9 is actually an immigration form. Completing this form improperly can lead to results worse than an IRS audit!

2) If your business requires specialized occupations, such employees may be hard to find. If you discover a foreign national that fits the qualification, an immigration lawyer is all but required to help navigate a complicated and nuanced work permit process.  Here's a link to my primer on H1B visas:  H1B Visa Primer.

3) If you are interested in capitalizing your business, there are incentives to foreigners to invest upwards of $1 million into a qualified business in exchange for permanent residence in the United States. It can be a great tool to capitalize an operation.

4) Multilingual workers add wonderful diversity and richness to an organization, as well as opportunity learn new potential markets. An immigration lawyer can help attain that diversity with resources and knowledge of those communities.

I HAVE A DUI CONVICTION AND WANT TO ENTER CANADA

See our other guides for details on this issue.  In general, if you want to visit our neighbor to the north, you can encounter problems at the border if you don't have a clean record, even if the entanglement was many decades earlier. Whether hunting and fishing, as a student, honeymooning, or traveling for work, an immigration lawyer can identify those inadmissible to enter Canada and possible solutions.

I FELL IN LOVE WITH A CITIZEN OF ANOTHER COUNTRY

Love is the international language. So it is not uncommon for people to fall in love with citizens of another country, whether it be for marriage, adoption, or other family unification. However, the red tape is onerous with confusing rules. Furthermore, denials often require a long wait before applying again. An immigration lawyer can make sure your family is unified on the first try.

PAST CHILD SUPPORT

This is worth its own section. I've had many U.S. citizen clients who've made extensive travel plans (like a rock and roll band tour) only to be denied a passport because of child support arrearages. This requires a last minute scramble with to government bureaucracies to resolve to problem.

RESOURCES:

http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/e-2-treaty-investor/understanding-e-2-requirements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/12/11900/the-top-10-economic-facts-of-diversity-in-the-workplace/

http://www.sportsmanlawyers.com/Canada-Denials.html

http://www.uscis.gov/family/family-us-citizens/fiancee-visa/fiancee-visas

http://travel.state.gov/content/adoptionsabroad/en.html

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/information/legal-matters/child-support.html

www.chaudlaw.com

www.deniedentrytocanada.com