Canada, Brazil, Mexico & Venezuela Immigration Updates

Clark Hill’s Outbound Immigration & & Global Mobility practice guides business customers and people through complex worldwide migration difficulties worldwide. We pride ourselves on innovative, certified, and people-centered services– taking a look at worldwide movement from a holistic point of view in an ever-changing migration environment. Our group helps with short-term projects, long-lasting movings, consular processing, file procurement, file legalizations/apostilles, and service visas in 100+ nations worldwide.

Below is a summary of the significant updates from September 2026 in the Americas area.

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Canada:

Unique Permanent Residence Pathways for Hong Kong Residents Closed

Reliable August 31, 2026, Canada closed its unique irreversible home paths for qualified Hong Kong locals to brand-new applications. Presented in 2021, the programs supplied irreversible home choices for qualified candidates with certifying Canadian education or work experience.

Applications sent on or before August 31, 2026, will continue to be processed. Qualified candidates with pending long-term house applications might likewise continue to get an open work license while their application is being processed. The open work allow policy is presently set up to stay in result till May 2029.

Hong Kong locals who did not use before the due date will require to think about other offered Canadian irreversible home choices. Candidates with pending applications are not impacted by the closure and might continue to gain from the open work authorization arrangements, where eligible.

New LMIA Requirements Tighten Employer Eligibility

Reliable September 18, 2026, Canada presented upgraded assistance clarifying which organizations certify as companies for Labor Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) applications under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A qualified company should have a real employer-employee relationship with the foreign employee, consisting of duty for employing, working conditions, guidance, and payment of earnings.

Under the upgraded assistance, staffing and employment service can not get LMIAs to put foreign employees with third-party services where the needed employer-employee relationship does not exist. Companies are likewise restricted from categorizing LMIA-based short-lived foreign employees as independent professionals.

Before pursuing an LMIA, companies utilizing staffing firms, third-party work, or independent professional plans need to evaluate their employing structures. Normally, business that uses, directs, and pays the foreign employee should certify as the company for LMIA functions.

Brazil:

Brazil Digitalizes Short-term and Work Visa Issuance

Efficient September 1, 2026, Brazil started digitally releasing short-term visas to nationals exempt from visitor visa requirements. The modification covers all short-lived visa classifications, consisting of work, household reunion, and digital wanderer visas.

Qualified candidates might now send applications and supporting files through the Integrated Consular System and get authorized visas by e-mail. This typically removes in-person submission of passports or initial files and return sees to gather visas. The modification uses just to consular issuance; existing file requirements, any pre-application home permission needed for work visas, and post-arrival Federal Police registration stay the same.

The digital procedure needs to enhance visa issuance for qualified candidates and companies by decreasing consular sees and passport handling. As application continues, candidates must verify treatments with the proper Brazilian consular post. Nationals of Australia, Canada, and the United States are not qualified since Brazil has actually restored visitor visa requirements for those nations.

Mexico:

Extended Immigration Processing Times

Foreign nationals and companies in Mexico are experiencing continued hold-ups with a number of migration procedures due to minimal visit schedule and longer processing times. The hold-ups are impacting post-arrival registrations, house renewals, irreversible house applications, modification of status filings, and home card issuance.

Hold-ups are most noticable in Mexico City, where post-arrival registration and home card issuance now might take 4 to 6 weeks, up from one to 2 weeks.

Companies and foreign nationals ought to enable extra processing time when preparing tasks and begin dates. Postponed home cards might likewise impact payroll registration, and pending migration procedures might limit travel sometimes.

Venezuela:

New PRO-V-90 Visa for Independent Professionals

Venezuela has actually presented the brand-new PRO-V-90 visa, an electronic, multiple-entry visa for independent specialists supplying short-lived specific services in Venezuela. The visa is planned for people offering services to a Venezuelan customer without developing a work relationship with, or getting employment-related settlement from, the Venezuelan entity.

The visa allows keeps up to 90 days and might be utilized for certifying activities such as technical help, functional assistance, speaking engagements, journalistic activities, and financial investment oversight. Applications are sent digitally through Venezuela’s Cancillería Digital platform.

The PRO-V-90 supplies a structured choice for business that require to send out workers or independent specialists to Venezuela for short-term specialized projects, especially where the business has a Venezuelan customer however does not preserve a regional using entity.

Top stories Contact Clark Hill

For extra info, please contact the Americas Immigration group at [email protected].

For more details on any of the updates in this publication, connect to among the members of our Outbound Immigration & & Global Mobility group.

To see September’s updates for the EMEA and APAC areas, click the particular area.

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