JJAT

My girlfriend and I are making a move to the US and she is having some issues with her TN visa - specifically with her VisaScreen. She is an RN (registered nurse) from Canada and has completed her US NCLEX exam, already has her NY state license, and a letter of offer/employment to work for a private medical clinic. 

We were unaware she needed a VisaScreen until we reached the border, at which point she was refused entry and had to head back home to complete this step. It has been 3 weeks since she has started the VisaScreen process and finally all documents have arrived to CGFNS ( the commission issuing the VisaScreen). When we called them today to verify that documents have arrived so we could proceed with the expediting of the processing (normally up to 10 weeks, but expediting could speed it up to 5 days - with no guarantee of approval) they informed us that it could take an additional 25 days minimum to verify and input the documents before expediting is even an option (on top of the 10 weeks of processing). 

We were wondering if anyone else has gone through this process? If so, did it indeed take that long to input the documents and was there any way to shorten this 25 day period? Furthermore, would hiring an immigration lawyer help this process along at all? If so, are there any firms that anyone could recommend from past experiences?  The company she is going to be working for is a small clinic, so they do not have any legal services to offer nor are they sponsoring her/paying for any of the fees. 

Thank you in advance.

Thank you two for taking the time to respond/for the information!!

I feel so useless/hopeless that I can't do much from my end of things. I'm so close to achieving my dream job, yet so far as these companies, even though they may want to, cannot hold the position open for nearly a year

Follow up question, just so I understand this better... So if applications are received April 1 (2017 lets say now..) and assuming you get accepted/approved, the visa would be issued Oct 1 (2017 again) to be able to start in January of the following year (2018). My question is, what's the point of Premium Processing Service?? If it doesn't actually speed up the process? Is it that you simply pay $1225 to find out within 15 days if your visa will actually be granted Oct 1?

Evening all,

I work in a field that is quite unique. I won't really know of any job openings until November, and the start dates are usually in January. So right off the bat, I would be very time pressed to get a work visa.

The other option would be the H-1B. For this, the employer needs to get a Labor Condition Application (LCA), along with the I-129 form. Once That is approved, that's when I would apply for the visa and/or admission into the country. I couldn't find a timeline for this, but I did see that the employer could only file this up to 6 months prior to the proposed start date and they recommended to do it as soon as possible; as such, I assume it could take upwards to that amount of time. However, I did find that you could also submit an I-907, Request for Premium Processing Service form, with those two forms at the same time. With that, for $1,225, they would guarantee processing within 15 calendar days.

I recently was offered a position, but once it went to their legal department, they got back to them saying that they could not apply for the H-1B until April 1st, and if I were lucky to have it selected in the lottery, as usually it does go to that, I wouldn't be issued the visa until Oct 1st. As such, they had to move forward with another candidate.

Sorry for all the background info, which I think most of it people know, but my questions are:

1- Is my information correct?

1b- How does the Premium Processing Service work because I feel like this is what I would need to do??

2- Did the information their legal department came back with correct?

3- What options, if any, do I have to try and get into this field in the US?

Thank you in advance for all that took the time to read and respond!!