Creative Way Of Meeting E-2 Visa Requirements For Young Entrepreneur
- Applicants: Ms. Chi
- Country/Region: Taiwan, China
- Case: E-2 Treaty Investor
- Challenges:
- The client wanted to do most of the work on her own
- Had to review a large amount of documentation
- The client was very young and had little to no experience
- Only had one day to complete all tasks for our client
BACKGROUND
Fair shares of young people finish school to find they lack something that they never had the chance to get, experience. Employers worldwide would prefer a candidate with experience, but every year our universities churn out candidates into a job market that may not be looking for fresh-faced newcomers, and this was Ms. Chi’s experience. Once she finished school she thought many companies in Taiwan would want to hire her, but job after job, she realized that she was wrong. What the school had not provided Ms. Chi was the chance to gather experience in her field. Ms. Chi was nervous about the prospects of ever getting a job until she got in contact with her aunt in the United States.
Opportunities are limited to the inexperienced, but for Ms. Chi, it wasn’t so much the lack of opportunity, it was the location of that opportunity. Her aunt, Mrs. Yang, needed help with her business in America, but for Ms. Wang to join her, she needed to be approved as an E-2 Treaty Investor, a high bar for someone so young and fresh. Although nervous about the process, she was determined to not only help her family but gain experience as well. This was when they contacted Tsang & Associates.
KEYS TO SUCCESS
Part of what we do for our clients is to advise them on the easiest courses of action. Ms. Yang had retained our services in the past on her E-2 application and decided this time around that she would like to try to do the E-2 work for her niece on her own. However, she did hire us to consult on the process to learn what she would need to have prepared. Because she did so, she was able to take the easiest path towards E-2 status for Ms. Wang. Many people try to get their status Chied to an E-2 Treaty Investor here in the United States. However, most do not know the requirements and results surrounding E-2 visas depending on which country they are attempted in. For Taiwanese nationals, requirements for getting E-2 status while in the United States are much, much tougher, and lead to a shorter amount of time given to them to be E-2 Treaty Investors, only two years. By having Ms. Yang and Ms. Chi travel to Taiwan and doing their interview at the U.S. embassy there, the requirements would drop, and, if approved, Ms. Wang would have five years of E-2 status as a result.
The process of becoming an E-2 Treaty Investor, regardless of location, is still extensive. A person has to prove that they are heavily invested in a company that is here in the United States, to the point where they have to be at least a 50% owner of the company. And, because of fraud involved with these kinds of cases, they also have to prove that the company is a real enterprise, not a paper-company or false company. The company also has to prove itself worth the heavy investment, that the income generated for the investor would be more than enough to provide a minimal living for the investor. For this, the investor cannot merely be just an investor but someone who plans to run the day-to-day of the company from a managerial level. Finally, since E-2 status is non-immigrant, the investor has to show that they, eventually, expect to return to their home country.
Armed with that knowledge and with an idea of what would be required of them in their interview, our clients disappeared for a time to collect the necessary information and prepare their paperwork. We thought that may have been the end of the consultation, that is until we received a call late on Friday, December 28th, 2018. Ms. Wang and Ms. Yang were in Taiwan, and the interview was the next day, and they needed our help.
They needed us to review their documentation, correct it where necessary, review their financials, and write an extensive cover letter, all in the space of about one day. In the vast majority of our cases, we handle as much of the work as possible for our clients. We make contacts, we collect information, we help them with paperwork, and we advise them on every step of the process. However, we pride ourselves on our flexibility and our ability to work unique cases, so we took this challenge upon ourselves.
“We helped them strategize, and we helped them with their business plan. We gave them a checklist of documents they needed to have. But this case was difficult. This client, she was only twenty-two. She was trying to join her aunt, which was very difficult because E-2 Treaty Investors need to prove that they will come in at the managerial level. She had essentially no experience… It was really fun working for her, knowing that we were able to get someone who would otherwise have trouble qualifying here and in business with their family.” – Andy, Paralegal
The work was not insubstantial. Luckily, because the client had come to us and done this with us before and because she got the checklist of documentation for this case previously from us, we were able to present a pretty much airtight case for Ms. Wang to join her aunt here in the United States. They had all the documentation they needed, what was left to do was make a few corrections, make sure their financials were in order, and to write the letter.
OUTCOME
The letter detailed how Ms. Wang had met all of the E-2 requirements, including a section on her schooling and what this experience would mean for her future going forward. Her status was approved on December 29th, 2018, and she was able to go into business and manage their business with her aunt here in the U.S. We were happy that we could help their family reunite and that we could provide Ms. Wang with an avenue to the business experience that she needed.