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Help! TN Visa Rejected due to misinterpreting a question during interview process

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  • Help! TN Visa Rejected due to misinterpreting a question during interview process

    Hi All. Need some advice here. Here's my situation:

    My employer is a firm that operates in both the US and Canada. We do consulting for both American and Canadian clients. As a consultant, I need to sometimes travel to the US to meet American clients. My firm gave me a letter and I had all the supporting documentation such as my university degree. However, I was not briefed upon what not to say during the interview process. My firm's headquarters is in the US and they don't have a lot of experience getting TN visas for their Canadian employees. Document wise, everything checked out but during the interview, I misinterpreted a question from the border officer.

    The question he asked was: Do you manage any employees in the US?

    So I had a bit of a brain slip here. The truth is that I do not have any direct reports from anyone in the company, not even Canadian employees. However, when assigned to a specific project, I do have tactical authority over members of the project. I stated this and was rejected. The border officer said that people who manage US employees cannot get approved. Now this has been noted on my record. This happened back in April of 2017.

    A few months ago, I had to go for a business meeting to the US. When I was attempting to cross the border, I was pulled aside and taken into a room where a border officer went through my work laptop and my work emails to determine whether or not I was trying to sneak into the US for work. AFter 30 minutes of questioning, he let me through. So now I know for sure I'm definitely on some sort of "blacklist."

    Eventually for my position, I am gonna need a TN visa. My firm's HR department has not been helpful because they don't have the experience with this and they do not have a legal department to help aid with this. They pay a 3rd party law firm on these matters and apparently get charged a high amount and so they have not revisited this issue on what I should do in my situation. I feel like I need to take the matter into my own hands.

    I want to re-apply for TN visa at some point in the near future. Given that I've already been rejected and the reason for rejection is noted in my record, what should I do differently this time?

    Thanks.

  • #2
    I suggest you pay for your own lawyer, draft up a comprehensive TN visa letter and practice the interview questions. In the end, the custom officers only care about the bullet points in your letter so ensure they are very clear and detailed pertaining to the TN visa category you're trying to apply for. I've known several coworkers that were denied TN visa entry because the lawyers did not prep them enough and got in a second time by doing it themselves. I find using a lot of industry language in your visa letter does the trick as the officers have the border do not have expertise in your field.

    Another option is to apply for the TN visa via mail which is much better in my experience as the customs officers at the vermont processing certain are very well trained and not as biased and you can avoid the interview at the border. The only caveat is the mailing process takes longer but you can pay for premium processing.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by SmoothSailing View Post
      Hi All. Need some advice here. Here's my situation:

      My employer is a firm that operates in both the US and Canada. We do consulting for both American and Canadian clients. As a consultant, I need to sometimes travel to the US to meet American clients. My firm gave me a letter and I had all the supporting documentation such as my university degree. However, I was not briefed upon what not to say during the interview process. My firm's headquarters is in the US and they don't have a lot of experience getting TN visas for their Canadian employees. Document wise, everything checked out but during the interview, I misinterpreted a question from the border officer.

      The question he asked was: Do you manage any employees in the US?

      So I had a bit of a brain slip here. The truth is that I do not have any direct reports from anyone in the company, not even Canadian employees. However, when assigned to a specific project, I do have tactical authority over members of the project. I stated this and was rejected. The border officer said that people who manage US employees cannot get approved. Now this has been noted on my record. This happened back in April of 2017.

      A few months ago, I had to go for a business meeting to the US. When I was attempting to cross the border, I was pulled aside and taken into a room where a border officer went through my work laptop and my work emails to determine whether or not I was trying to sneak into the US for work. AFter 30 minutes of questioning, he let me through. So now I know for sure I'm definitely on some sort of "blacklist."

      Eventually for my position, I am gonna need a TN visa. My firm's HR department has not been helpful because they don't have the experience with this and they do not have a legal department to help aid with this. They pay a 3rd party law firm on these matters and apparently get charged a high amount and so they have not revisited this issue on what I should do in my situation. I feel like I need to take the matter into my own hands.

      I want to re-apply for TN visa at some point in the near future. Given that I've already been rejected and the reason for rejection is noted in my record, what should I do differently this time?

      Thanks.
      Smoothsailing, if you manage employees in the U.S., you can not get a TN visa? What is the correct type of work visa then?

      Comment

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