Alphabet Soup for Temporary Statuses: B, E, F, J, H and L
Obtaining a green card can take a substantial amount of time, too much time for many employers who need to meet staffing needs in the short term. Moreover, the U.S. wants to encourage international commerce and trade, tourism, exchange of ideas and study in the U.S. by foreign students without granting permanent resident status to all of these categories. Therefore, Congress has created various temporary (or nonimmigrant) classifications for visitors, temporary workers and students.
The letters assigned to the subparagraphs in the immigration statute are used to identify the nonimmigrant categories. So, for example, B is for business visitors and tourists; F is for non- vocational students; J is for exchange students and other visitors participating in exchange programs; and L is for transferring personnel within multinational organizations.
The three most common nonimmigrant employment categories are E, H and L. The E category is for traders (E-1) and investors (E- 2) from countries with which the U.S. has a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation, a bilateral investment treaty, or an executive agreement such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). (For more on the E visa, see LLC for Foreign Investors in our library.) The L category is for managers and executives (L-1A) or employees with specialized knowledge (L-1B) who have been employed for at least one year with a company abroad that is transferring the employee to a related company in the U.S. The H category includes professionals (H-1B), temporary workers in short supply (H-2), and trainees (H-3). See H-1B for Professionals.
For Canadians and Mexicans, special provisions supplement the various nonimmigrant benefits available to foreign nationals generally. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which entered into force on January 1, 1994, commits the United States, Mexico and Canada to the reduction of existing barriers to trade and the freer movement of capital and labor. NAFTA contains reciprocal provisions for facilitating temporary business travel of citizens of the three countries, including a Trade NAFTA (TN) category for professionals that may be easier and quicker to obtain than an H-1B in certain cases.
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