Job Offer: Client’s position involved providing technical and engineering services and support to Mobile facility engineers with respect to the configuration, engineering, operation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of video production and broadcasting technology, equipment, and processing systems involved in the production of remote sports television programs.

Applicable Law & Guidance: In order to qualify for TN status as a Scientific Technician/Technologist, an applicant must provide proof of two elements:

(a) Theoretical knowledge of any of the following disciplines: agricultural sciences, astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, forestry, geology, geophysics, meteorology, or physics; and

(b) The ability to solve practical problems in any of those disciplines, or the ability to apply principles of any of those disciplines to basic or applied research. 8 C.F.R. § 214.6 (c).

The regulations also require a Scientific Technician to work in support of a professional in one of the disciplines described above. Additionally, a Scientific Technician TN application should satisfy the five principles for a Sci/Tech outlined in the legacy INS Memorandum by Johnny Williams, which requires that the applicant’s proposed job functions are consistent with those of a scientific or engineering technician or technologist as provided for in the Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Issues: (1) Client’s employer, a professional sports organization, did not directly hire the professional engineers with whom the Client would work in support of; and (2) Broadcasting Engineering would present itself as an atypical engineering field for a Scientific Technician TN application.

Solution: We prepared an Attorney Brief outlining how the Client’s position and his qualifications met the regulatory requirements and legacy INS guidelines for a Sci/Tech TN.

Specifically, we established how the Client satisfied the theoretical knowledge requirements for TN status as a Scientific Technician/Technologist based on his approximately two (2) years of post-secondary education involving coursework in video production and broadcasting engineering technology, equipment, and processes.

We documented how the Client possessed the ability to solve practical problems in engineering based on his over twenty-five (25) years of video production and broadcasting engineering technology experience.

We also documented how the Client would work in support of the mobile facility engineers employed by the broadcasting service companies that were engaged by the Client’s employer to broadcast its live sporting events.

Last, we explained that the Client’s job functions with his employer were consistent with an Engineering Technician working in the Broadcast Technology Engineering discipline. Under the TN regulations, a Scientific Technician may work in the Engineering field. According to the legacy INS Memorandum by Michael D. Cronin, “all engineering specialties” fall within the ambit of the Engineering profession for purposes of TN status. We submitted evidence establishing that the Client’s work in Broadcast Technology was a specialty within the Electrical Engineering Discipline.

We then explained that the Client’s job duties paralleled those performed by an Engineering Technician as described in the Occupational Outlook Handbook but within the context of the Broadcast Technology Engineering discipline.

Resolution: CBP at the land port-of-entry approved Client’s application for TN visa status as a Scientific Technician.