Practice area
Global Immigration
When American businesses need to send employees abroad for work, they often require employment permission from the foreign government. Elizabeth works with an established network of attorneys around the world to secure the necessary approvals and transfer employees smoothly.
Chapter 01
Why a transfer abroad needs the destination country's permission, not ours
Companies are often surprised by this one. A US employer can decide entirely on its own that an employee should spend the next two years in another country. What it cannot do is give that employee the right to work there. That right belongs to the destination government, and it is granted under that country's own rules, in that country's own language, on that country's own timetable.
So the question stops being an American legal question almost immediately. The useful early conversation is about which country, what the employee will actually be doing there, how long for, and whether they will be paid locally or from the US, because those four answers usually determine which permission is needed and how long it will take to get.
Long slats of morning light falling across a plain desk edge in a quiet professional office
The counsel network that carries the foreign half of the file
No US attorney is admitted everywhere, and one who claims to handle every country personally should be treated with suspicion. Elizabeth works with an established network of attorneys around the world, which is how the foreign half of a transfer gets done properly rather than approximately.
What that arrangement gives the company is a single point of contact who understands the business reason for the move, paired with somebody on the ground who knows what their own ministry will accept this quarter. The coordination is the service. The employer should not have to brief five separate firms on the same reorganisation.
Chapter 03
Sequencing a transfer so the employee can actually start
Transfers fail on sequence more than on substance. A work permit that depends on a registered local entity cannot be filed before the entity exists. A visa appointment that must be attended in the employee's home country cannot be booked after they have already moved. A dependent's permission often runs behind the employee's and nobody remembers until a school place is at stake.
Working the order out at the beginning, against the date the company actually needs the person in place, is most of the value here. It also tends to surface the awkward questions early, while they are still cheap to answer.
What the company keeps track of once the employee has moved
A posting is not finished when the permission is granted. Most are time limited, many are tied to the specific role or the specific local entity, and a promotion, a restructure or a change of payroll can quietly put the employee outside the terms of their own permit.
The practical answer is knowing which dates matter and who is watching them, before anyone needs to. Elizabeth will tell you which conditions attach to the permission that has been granted and what kinds of change are worth a phone call before they happen rather than after.
Streefland Law. Licensed in Minnesota and before the federal immigration agencies and courts. Call (612) 789-0379.
I work with an established network of attorneys around the world to help businesses secure the necessary foreign approvals to smoothly transfer employees abroad.
Elizabeth M. Streefland, Attorney