US Immigration News

The E2 visa program has many benefits for migrants.  E2 Treaty Investor visa allows entry to the US for businessmen, their families, employees, with a far lower investment requirement, than say the EB5 immigrant investor visa that requires an investment of at least $500,000 and the creation of at least ten jobs.

NAFTA the North American Free Trade Agreement came into force about twenty-five years ago.  This brought many benefits for trade between the US, Canada and Mexico.  One benefit is that for Canadians L1 intra-company transfer visas are easier to obtain than for many others.  However, it seems that this may be changing under Trump.

L1 visas are in many cases the only work visa option to transfer staff to the US.  For many companies obtaining each L1 visa is a huge effort.  Indian and Chinese nationals cannot apply for an E2 visa.  Therefore the L1 visa or H1B visa may be the only option in many cases. 

It remains the case that in the US in many cases it is extremely difficult to bring in migrant workers.  The H1B quota of 85,000 is far too small for such a large Country.  The L1 visa is very difficult to obtain. The E2 Treaty Investor visa and E1 Treaty Trader visa is not available for Indian and Chinese nationals.  This is surely bad for the US economy and also Donald Trump’s businesses!

Donald Trump whose businesses depend on migrants has tried to put forward an extreme anti-migrant agenda.   Interestingly many of the extreme right have turned against Trump for not going far enough.  The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer run by Andrew Anglin and Andrew Auernheimer also known as Weev (his mother claims he has jewish ancestry) now regularly attack Trump.  Not very long ago they were very supportive of President Donald Trump and referred to him as the "God Emperor".

There has been significant delays in the New Zealand E2 visa scheme as well.  We will see what happens.   Perhaps the E2 visa scheme for Israelis will be available soon.