The North American Free Trade Agreement established the NAFTA Professional — or TN — visa in 1994. Buried in the 1,708-page document, the provision received little attention at the time; indeed, some experts complained that the agreement had ignored the issue of migration, particularly between Mexico and the United States.

      TN status is granted in one-year, renewable increments to high-skilled workers from Canada and Mexico who are in eligible occupations and have U.S. job offers. The visas are especially attractive to workers and employers because they can be extended repeatedly and have simple entry requirements, low fees and, most strikingly, no annual quotas limiting the number of workers who can be admitted. Moreover, they don’t require filing applications by mail with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

      In contrast, most other major job-based visa programs for high-skilled foreigners, such as H-1Bs and employment-based green cards, have costly requirements, fixed limits on the number of workers allowed into the U.S., and processing delays that add months or even years to the wait.

      The TN visas’ flexibility allows them to serve a vital economic function by permitting free and timely movement of skilled workers into areas with growing demand. In light of the limitations and failures of other visa programs, the TN’s combination of market-based efficiency and minimal red tape makes it a potential model for a type of guest-worker plan and a stepping stone toward a common NAFTA labor market.

            Because the TN visa program applies only to skilled employees, it can’t be used by the largest group of NAFTA workers seeking entry to the U.S. — low-skilled migrants from Mexico. Even so, three developments have given the TN visa program increasing importance: growth in U.S. demand for high-skilled workers, shortages of H-1Bs and other employment-based visas, and the TN program’s user-friendly procedures.

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