According to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) agreement, an additional qualification has been offered to the people of Mexico and Canada who are qualified to work temporarily under the category of NAFTA. This visa is known to be the TN visa which covers a large number of working areas including accounting, mathematics, scoence, social work, nursing etc. Although the visa is primarily issued for a single year, extension is available for years.
To quaifly for this visa, the applicant needs to hold a bachelor’s degree of US equivalent. This degree then needs to be verified by a professional credential evaluation service like the Evaluation Credentials and then submitted to USCIS for approval.
An applicant for TN visa can also apply for the TD visa that allows his spouses or children to come and stay with him in the US. However, people with the TN visa may not be allowed to work within the US. Citizens from Canada are given the TN-1 and citizens from Mexico are given the TN-2. The process for these two types differs. The TN-1 applicants are eligible to apply for the visa in both the Canadian airports or the Canada-US border.
Recently, the procedure has changed for citizens of Mexico applying for TN-2 Visas through the Matamoras, Mexico Consulate. Although this change has not yet been reflected on the consulate’s website, these new changes became effective on September 10, 2008. Visa applicants must now call for an appointment or schedule one online at the consulate website, located at http://matamoros.usconsulate.gov/matamoros/nafta_visas_tn.html.
For the citizens of mexico, a recent change has been made on the TN-2 visa process which has been active since 10th September, 2008. In this system, all the applicants are required to call for the appointment. They can also schedule the appointment in online from the website http://matamoros.usconsulate.gov/matamoros/nafta_visas_tn.html. The employer needs to submit the credentials of the applicant to the USCIS for an evaluation. And after an approval has been made, the employer can fix an appointment for the visa. Prior to this change, applicants could submit their credentials before the interview.