Canadian TN Nonimmigrants
On Oct. 1, 2012, USCIS will begin accepting the Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker, filed on behalf of Canadian citizens who are outside the United States and seeking classification as a TN nonimmigrant.
With respect to the TN classification, USCIS currently only accepts Form I-129 in connection with a request to extend a TN nonimmigrant’s stay or to change a nonimmigrant’s status to TN.
I've been in the US for 13 of the last 14 years and over the years I've obtained 6 different TN's and I've been on an H1b for a total of 8 years. I was voluntarily out of the country for 1 year about 5 years ago, which reset my H1b clock.
The last status I had was a TN and that was after I was married to a USC (we were still deciding what country we'd live in) and finally I filed for my GC. My EAD was approved 2 weeks prior to my TN expiring and now I am just waiting for my GC Interview in 4 weeks.
I got my first TN in 07/96 and was content working with that until the Pigeon River point of entry decided that the TN for health care worker was good only for 6 months with the second one at no charge. Back then, dual intent was either ignored or didn't exist for TNs so I started the immigration process. I was in Kansas, so my labor cert took 2 years because there was only one person in Topeka working on them. If I lived in New Jersey, it would have been approved in a month. Once it was approved, I filed the I-140 and after that was approved, the I-485. There was no H1B involved.