WORLD
By Matthew Little I Epoch Times Staff
NEW YORK—President Donald Trump’s plan to cancel or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has made some Canadian professionals working in the United States under a special NAFTA visa anxious. But immigration lawyers say the hysterics are ill-placed.
“We do not have a dictatorship, the hysteria is maddening,” wrote one lawyer, in an informal poll conducted by Joseph Grasmick, a business immigration lawyer who literally wrote the handbook on these NAFTA or TN visas.
TN visas give Canadians on a relatively short list of professions the ability to work in the United States without a limit on the number of times they can renew the visa, and with relatively little paperwork.
Grasmick polled Canadian lawyers practicing U.S. immigration law, as well as American lawyers doing the same in upstate New York. They were virtually unanimous in their opinion that there was little to worry about, though their clients seemed to think otherwise.
“I received too many messages like this to count,” wrote one lawyer in upstate New York.
Another lawyer, whom Grasmick describes as a top border lawyer, agreed that significant change was unlikely.
“I think changes will be with enforcement priorities rather than benefits,” she wrote.
That enforcement is more likely to focus on the Mexican border than on the Canadian border, said Grasmick.
I received too many messages like this to count.
Lawyer in upstate New York
There are tens of thousands of Canadians in the United States on TN visas. But according to some sources, they are relatively lucky compared to Mexicans. Even if NAFTA is canceled, essentially the same visa existed under NAFTA’s predecessor, the bilateral Canada—U.S. Free Trade Agreement.
“It’s the same thing,” said Grasmick.
A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department wouldn’t comment on what may or may not happen in regard to TN visas if NAFTA were canceled, but said colleagues in the consular bureau were looking into the issue.