Recent United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. State Department updates require businesses and individuals to adhere to new TN visa eligibility criteria—such as prohibiting self-employment, clarifying professional categories, and enforcing degree and experience documentation—while also allowing U.S. passport holders to select gender identity markers pending litigation, and mandating that F, J, and M visa applicants maintain public social media profiles for enhanced vetting and national security review.
USCIS and the U.S. State Department have recently released several updates, including:
- Updates to TN NAFTA Visa Policy Manual. On June 4, 2025, USCIS updated its regulations related to TN NAFTA Visa Applications. The most relevant updates include:
- The TN visa applicant must come to the U.S. to work for a U.S. employer and that self-employment is not allowed under the TN Visa program.
- The Computer Systems Analysts category does not include programmers, although some programming activities may be undertaken.
- The Economists category does not include financial analysts, market research analysts, and marketing specialists’ positions.
- The Engineers category requires a degree in the specific engineering field.
- An academic evaluation is required if the TN visa applicant obtained a degree from an educational institution outside the U.S., Canada, or Mexico.
- Evidence of experience must be in the form of letters from former employers or business records if self-employed.
- U.S. Passport Gender Identity Policy Decision. On June 17, 2025, a Federal judge issued a temporary injunction pausing enforcement of the State Department’s policy requiring that passports bear only a person’s sex designation assigned at birth. The ruling pauses enforcement of the policy for all transgender, nonbinary, and intersex U.S. passport holders and allows them to continue to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity or with an “X” sex designation while the lawsuit proceeds.
- Resumption of Processing of F & J Visa Applications and Additional Online Presence Vetting. On June 18, 2025, the U.S. State Department announced that it will resume scheduling of F, J, and M visa interviews and the organization will conduct comprehensive vetting of all student and exchange visitor F, J, and M nonimmigrant visa applicants. Specifically, the new guidance requires that all F, J, and M visa applicants adjust their social media profile privacy settings to “public,” to allow U.S. State Department officials to examine their online presence. The U.S. State Department notes that “every visa adjudication is a national security decision.”
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