An employer’s spending approval does not itself provide immigration work permission.
Coordinate onboarding with the actual immigration stage
Assess the actual proposed activities and lawful basis before work begins. Neither a funded recruitment plan nor a booked training session guarantees that eligibility, admissibility and availability have been resolved.
Place onboarding after immigration authorization, not after internal spending approval. The official sequence begins when the applicant files online and pays DHS’s nonrefundable US$15,000 processing charge. A later USCIS notice prompts Form I-140G, and government payment directions for the applicable gift arrive only after vetting. Current terms set the individual amount at US$1 million, while a corporate-sponsored principal requires US$2 million. Completion of those steps does not erase EB-1 or EB-2 classification requirements, admissibility, visa availability, or the need for a lawful basis to work. Orientation that becomes productive service should not be disguised as preliminary training. Gold Card is not EB-5, and its government gift is not job-creating investment capital. Because procedures can evolve, confirm official instructions again before payments or travel. The common scheduling mistake is treating a purchase-order approval as a start notice.
Hypothetical example: An educational-media studio near Sainte-Rose-du-Nord approves sponsorship spending for a production manager and schedules remote orientation. It postpones any US-based productive onboarding until the employee has completed the official stages and holds work authorization, while keeping ordinary Canadian duties distinct from the proposed assignment.