Richard Canfield hosts Canadians discussing why they're moving to the U.S. and how. They cover employment visas like EB3, investor visas (EB5 requires $1 million or $500,000 in rural areas), and buying U.S. businesses. Green card timelines stretch years; healthcare access and premium screening services differ sharply from Canada.
Questions this video answers
$800,000
Approximately $1,050,000 (transcript: 'a million and fifty')
10 full-time US jobs per applicant
Usually about 2–3 years to complete
April 15
Chapters
Foreign.
Well, firstly, is the. What is it referred to as? The, the, the. The golden tickets, or you pay the four or five million dollars. And has anybody. I'm genuinely curious, like, has anybody reached out to your firm and said, sign me up.
They want to be signed up. They want to know what is this all about.
Oh, okay.
And it's not law, and I don't know if it ever will become law.
Oh, I see.
Kind of just like a conversation they were having and it was thrown out there and then everyone was crazy. And I think there was some strategy behind that, because if you know Donald Trump at all, you know about his kind of his tactic where he aims super high and then gets to where he wants to be. So there's always an underlying motivation, I think, and I think the motivation here was to really drive EB5 investment. Even though he was bashing EB5 in that conversation, EB5 was brought up and there was kind of like a fear of loss placed on it, because we know that it's in law for a certain amount of time and then they're going to vote on it. And he talked about the gold card, which would be very, very difficult to pass into law. And so we got a ton of people were like, let's do EB5 before it's gone for good. And it's the only path to get a green card. So that's what I think. That's just my opinion on it.
That's smart.
And a lot of activity for EB5.
Oh, I can imagine. And with the business broker. So first of all, that's a great, brilliant service to add on, by the way, given, you know, the number of entrepreneurs that I get to network with and who have a big desire. Because now they're saying, hey, how did you get operational in the us? Like, we want to do that too. Can we buy. Can we buy businesses there? Yes, you can. And does. Does the SBA work with international buyers or is it just predominantly us?
Typically, you have to have a green card to be able to qualify for sba.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah, it's good to know.
Yeah. But we can help them with all of that, even simple entity formation. If they want to start doing some business down here, we can help them. So it's good to know.
That's fantastic. And the green card process, can you step through at a surface level what that looks like for somebody?
Sure. So it kind of depends on. It's very case specific, of course, but there's generally only a few ways to get a Green card. The first is through family. So either you're married to a US citizen or you have immediate family members. And sometimes even with immediate family members, the wait time is quite long for that. The second most, and I think it's probably the most common way is through employment. So just like your employer transferred you down, they might have wanted to pursue a green card for you with EB3 or H1B. So that takes usually about two to three years to complete. But it is the most common way because I think a lot of companies are bringing foreign talent in and I see it quite frequently with larger companies as well. So there's employment and then there's also what I mentioned, EB5, which is green card by investment. So the minimum investment for that is 800,000 and it goes into a project that is meant to create 10 full time US jobs per applicant. There's also the other side of EB5 where you could invest called direct investment and where you buy your or start your own business and you would invest a million and fifty and still have to account for the ten full time US jobs created.
Very interesting.
The three most. Those are the three most common ways one would get their green card.
That is very interesting.
When you know, Rocky, you mentioned the conversation or the questions around health and you know, of course having insurance, being that Canadians have a. Well, well we'll call it a. The free health care that everyone knows isn't free compared to having insurance and stuff in the States. And I would imagine that is a barrier for a lot of people, especially if you have like maybe pre existing conditions and what have you and depending on your ages, what's been your experience now living there for eight years for you guys as far as both having insurance, getting it and the difference between your experience with the system that you live in today versus the one that you are accustomed to for your entire life prior to.
Oh my God, where do I start? So actually yeah, I want to start with, you know, April 15th is our filing deadline in the US for taxes. And as we know in Canada it's April 30th and usually it was a very dreary and terrible day on April 30th because that's when you got to see exactly how much you paid. Well, now that I live in Florida, not only is the weather better, but I celebrate April 15th. And the first time, you know, that Mena here had to make a payment on April 15, she was upset, she's like, oh my God. And I said, mena, this is what you would have paid if we were in Canada. She's like, oh. I said, yeah, go be merry and happy because completely different strategy. Well, the tax advantages are incredible. And so you are going to save literally tens of thousands of dollars a year off your taxes, number one. Number two, pre existing conditions don't count when you buy, when you buy health care. Okay. Your age does, of course. There is no physical. Obviously, if you have, let's say you're in the middle of treating something and it's the first time you're getting on the insurance here, then they may ask you if there's something you're like currently treating. But in my situation, I pay $600 a month, I have really good insurance and I don't have to go to my family doctor to get a referral for a specialist. I'm covered. My most important thing for me was if I go to the hospital, I don't. I want to make sure I'm covered with everything. And so I have really good insurance. It's 600amonth. And like, I'll give you an example. I had it, my hip was hurting me. It was bothering me, bothering me. I look online, I find a walk in orthopedic surgeon's office. Walk in and I'm like, there's no way. So I look it up, I go in. Half an hour later, X rayed everything tells me what I need to do. Another shocking story. I pull into the hospital, I have to go for a test, and people who saw me must have thought I was insane. I'm laughing in the parking lot by myself because the hospital offers complimentary valet parking. Yeah. So I have also seen instances where treatments don't exist in Canada and they do here. My mother had an ailment for 10 years. She couldn't, couldn't fix it. And one of our clients was a specialist. I asked him, he said, here's the medication. Shipped it up to my mother. Within six months, everything was, was solved. So I think the healthcare here, I mean, it's not, I don't think any system is perfect. But what I like about it is I would rather spend the money I choose to buy the insurance I want and actually have service when I need it 100%. And I didn't have that same experience in Canada. I had months and months of waiting for a specialist. And now they're taking, you know, your wellness exams instead of doing it every year. No, it's every two years. No, it's every three years. I mean, they're just, they're rolling the Dice, they know that if they push it out, more people are going to get sick, but the cost of treating them is going to be less than actually giving people. And I had a client who needed surgery, she had a brain tumor and the Canadian system told her that it wasn't quite time yet. We're just going to watch it. So she ended up booking a surgery in California, paying for it and going there on her own. So, you know that that's what I think about the healthcare. I think it's been great and they take good care of you and I appreciate that, especially coming from the Canadian system, which is, you know, it's bogged down, much different.
And I'll add to what you shared. So my, one of my companies takes care of me going down to Florida, down to Naples once a year, typically in the month of February. And I visit Fountain Life. And Fountain Life is shout out to Fountain Life. If anybody ends up listening from Fountain Life, they're incredible. The day starts at around 7am and runs till about 6pm and we do full body MRI, DEXA scan, microbiome, blood work, the whole gamut. And there's literally, you're pampered from the moment you walk in the door until the moment your day is done. And then they prepare an entire presentation of all of your results that are reviewed with you. They describe to you in every detail what your body does well, what it may not be doing so well, how to bridge that gap. And they use artificial intelligence screening technology for lungs, for internal organs, for it is just incredible. And when I described this service to my, my family doctor here in Canada, she said, oh, I would love to see that presentation of what they put together. I said, yeah, of course, I'm happy to share it with you. And she said, I have never seen anything this remarkable and thorough ever, ever. Because the practice of medicine is governed in Canada and the U.S. by certain standard of care, certain standard of, you know, diagnosis and certain standard of prognosis and all these, you know, the doctor was explaining all this to me and he said, because I said, hey, have you ever thought about operating in Canada? And he said we would just not be able to overcome the regulatory obstacles. So where I was going with this is now what this organization has done. Given that a lot of Canadians spend time in the United States as snowbirds, many of whom are now migrating to the U.S. they're setting up inside of these adult only communities where you would be accustomed to having a community center with a gym, a pool, maybe some barbecue, some amenities. And now fountain life being part of your hoa. So you can literally create time. Go in, see a doctor, get a test. No different than you'd say, hey, I'm going to go take a swim today. I'm going to go see if Dr. Smith is available to have a discussion with me about what's been ailing me. That would never happen here.
Ever.
Well, because it's not a business, Right?
Right.
And there's only so much money there. Like, when I owned the retirement home in Canada, we would send some of our clients, they had to go to the hospital, and sometimes they'd spend a week in a hallway on a gurney.
