dismissed EB-1C Case: Education

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF I- LLC 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: FEB. 28, 2018 
MOTION ON ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS OFFICE DECISION 
PETITION: FORM I-140, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR ALIEN WORKER 
The Petitioner, an online educational institution, seeks to permanently employ the Beneficiary as its 
director and chief operations officer under the first preference immigrant classification for 
multinational executives or managers. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) 
section 203(b)(l)(C), 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(1)(C). This classification allows a U.S. employer to 
permanently transfer a qualified foreign employee to the United States to work in an executive or 
managerial capacity. 
The Director of the Nebraska Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that the Petitioner has a qualifying relationship with the Beneficiary's foreign 
employer. We agreed with this finding, and dismissed the Petitioner's appeal from that decision. 
The Petitioner has filed a motion to reconsider, stating that we misinterpreted evidence in the record, 
resulting in an erroneous decision. We will deny the motion. 
I. MOTION REQUIREMENTS 
To merit reconsideration, a petitioner must meet the formal filing requirements (such as, for 
instance, submission of a properly completed Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, with the 
correct fee), and show proper cause for granting the motion. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(l). 
A motion to reconsider must establish that our decision was based on an incorrect application of law 
or policy and that the decision was incorrect based on the evidence in the record of proceedings at 
the time of the decision. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(3). We may grant a motion that satisfies these 
requirements and demonstrates eligibility for the requested immigration benefit. We cannot grant a 
motion that does not meet these requirements. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(4). 
Before we discuss the substance of the motion, we address a procedural point. The Petitioner states 
that it "reserves the right to extend the arguments contained in this brief and to submit additional 
evidence as long as this Motion to Reconsider is pending." The regulations, however, do not grant 
the Petitioner that right. A motion to reconsider must meet applicable requirements "when filed," 
i.e., at the time of filing. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(3). The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 103.3(a)(2)(vii) allows 
the Petitioner to request additional time to submit a brief on appeal, and gives us discretion to grant 
.
Matter of I- LLC 
that request for good cause shown. There is no parallel provision for motions to reconsider. Even if 
such a provision did exist for motions, the Petitioner has not shown good cause for us to grant 
additional time; it has simply claimed the right to supplement the record at an indeterminate point in 
the future. 
Also, a motion to reconsider is based on an incorrect application of law or policy, while a motion to 
reopen is based on documentary evidence of new facts. The Petitioner has not filed a motion to 
reopen and has not explained the new facts that it seeks to establish on motion . 
For the above reasons, we consider the Petitioner's motion to be complete and will render our 
decision accordingly. 
II. ANALYSIS 
Upon review, and for the reasons discussed below, we find the Petitioner has not shown 
proper cause 
for reconsideration. 
An immigrant visa is available to a beneficiary who, in the three years preceding the filing of the 
petition, has been employed outside the United States for at least one year in a managerial or executive 
capacity, and seeks to enter the United States in order to continue to render managerial or executive 
services to the same employer or to its subsidiary or affiliate. Section 203(b )(1 )(C) of the Act. 
To establish a "qualifying relationship " under the Act and the regulations , a petitioner must show 
that the beneficiary's foreign employer and the proposed U.S. employer are the same employer (i.e. 
a U.S. entity with a foreign office) or related as a "parent and subsidiary" or as "affiliates." See 
generally section 203(b)(l)(C) ofthe Act; 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(C). 
The Petitioner claims to be affiliated with the Beneficiary's former foreign employer, ISEAD S.L., 
because the same three shareholders own both companies, either directly or indirectly through their 
ownership of intermediate companies. We agreed with the Director's finding that the Petitioner did 
not establish the claimed qualifying relationship. 
The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(2) provides three definitions for the term "affiliate." For this 
proceeding, the relevant definition is "One of two legal entities owned and controlled by the same 
group of individuals , each individual owning and controlling approximately the same share or 
proportion of each entity." For two entities to qualify as affiliates under this definition , it cannot 
suffice that they have the same owners; the proportion of ownership of each entity must be about the 
same. 
A. Ownership of the Petitioning U.S. Employer 
In our appellate decision, we noted that the Petitioner is organized as a limited liability company 
with 
three members identified in public records from 2015 and 2016: and 
2 
.
Matter of I- LLC 
These same individuals were also the members of another company, 
and there is conflicting information in the record as to whether was 
temporarily the sole member of the petitioning LLC. This discussion is tangential, however, because 
the membership later reverted to the three individuals named above. 
In our appellate decision, we found that the Petitioner had not established the percentage of interest 
that each of the three individuals held in the petitioning entity. The Petitioner does not address this 
finding on motion , either by establishing those proportions or by showing that the information was 
already in the record. The Petitioner simply maintains that it has established that the three 
individuals own the petitioning entity. 
The Petitioner has not established that we erred in fact or law with respect to the ownership of the 
petitioning LLC. 
B. Ownership of the Foreign Employer 
We found that the Petitioner submitted conflicting information regarding the ownership of 
, the Beneficiary's foreign employer. 
The record contains several references to a company called 
Petitioner states: 
On motion, the 
The Chief of the Administrative Appeals Office erred when he found that . . . the 
Petitioner[] was owned by three individuals while owns 
. 
. . We submitted no such evidence of ownership, but it is all owned by the 
same shareholders owners [sic]. 
The record refutes the above assertion. In correspondence to the Director, the Petitioner claimed: 
is not the owner of the Beneficiary 's employer abroad, it only has 
a very minor interest in The Petitioner, however, has submitted several documents that 
contradict this claim. A 2015 shareholder affidavit signed by meeting minutes from 
20 15; and a 2006 entry in the Mercantile Registry of all refer to as the sole 
shareholder of The Petitioner has not resolved or explained these conflicting claims, 
and we did not err by accurately reporting the contents of those documents in our appellate decision. 
Various documents in the record refer collectively to 
identify them by name or establish proportions of ownership. 
shareholders, but do not 
The Petitioner devotes much of the motion to the argument that the employing entities "did not cease 
to exist simply because their shares or proprietary interest were acquired by the entity 
. . . . [They] continue to exist without any consequence of the fact that there are 
new shareholders or owners of the proprietary interest." This assertion is beside the point. We did 
not find that either employer had ceased to exist, nor did we question the Beneficiary 's 
3 
.
Matter of 1- LLC 
employer /employee relationship with those companies. But in this proceeding, the Petitioner seeks a 
specific immigration benefit that requires a qualifying relationship to exist at all relevant times. 
Because the qualifying relationship hinges on ownership, "new shareholders or owners" are highly 
consequential to the proceeding. 
The Petitioner asserts that "the same individual owners," i.e., and own 
each of the employing entities, and the interposition of a "holding company" does not change their 
ultimate ownership. The Petitioner, however, has not submitted any first-hand evidence that proves 
this claim or shows how much of either entity each shareholder owns. We noted this deficiency in 
our appellate decision, and the Petitioner has not remedied it on motion. 
The Petitioner notes that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services previously approved a 
nonimmigrant petition granting the Beneficiary status as an L-1 A intracompany transferee. The 
Petitioner claims that this approval "itself is sufficient evidence of the same ownership of both [the] 
foreign company and the U.S. subsidiary." Each petition has its own separate record of proceedings, 
and the record of proceedings for the nonimmigrant petition is not before us. We cannot tell if that 
earlier petition included sufficient evidence of a qualifying relationship, or was approved in error. 
We are not required to approve applications or petitions where eligibility has not been demonstrated, 
merely because of prior approvals that may have been erroneous. See Matter of Church Scientology 
Int '!, 19 I&N Dec. 593, 597 (Comm'r 1988); see also Sussex Eng 'g, Ltd. v. Montgomery , 825 F.2d 
1084, 1090 (6th Cir. 1987). Furthermore, we are not bound to follow a contradictory decision of a 
service center. La. Philharmonic Orchestra v. INS, No. 98-2855, 2000 WL 282785, at *2 (E.D. La. 
2000). 
The Petitioner has not overcome our earlier finding that the Petitioner has made conflicting claims 
regarding the relationship between and and that the Petitioner has not 
credibly documented the ownership of either of those entities. 
C. Additional Issue 
As explained above, the Petitioner has not established, on motion, that our dismissal of the appeal 
relied on errors of law or fact. Therefore, the motion does not meet the requirements of a motion to 
reconsider. For that reason, we must deny the motion, and the appeal remains dismissed. 
Beyond the arguments related to the motion itself, we note an additional factual development that 
weighs directly on the issue of the qualifying relationship between the Petitioner and the 
Beneficiary's foreign employer. 
A petitioner must establish eligibility at the time it files the petltwn, continuing through the 
adjudication of the petition. See 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(l). Disqualifying events can occur while the 
petition, appeal, or motion is pending. 
4 
.
Matter of I- LLC 
During a routine check of public records , in order to verify that the Petitioner continues to exist and 
to do business , we looked up the petitioning company on a searchable database at a website operated 
by the Florida Division of Corporations .1 According to filings dated November 13, 2017, 
and all withdrew as members of the petitioning LLC effective July 31 , 2017. 
Any change of ownership of the petitioning entity is material to the issue of the qualifying 
relationship, but the Petitioner did not disclose these resignations even though they took place three 
months 
before the Petitioner filed its motion. 
An annual report filed on February 5, 2018, identified as the sole member of the 
petitioning LLC. articles of incorporation, filed on July 13, 2017, did not name 
or as officers of the corporation. There is no evidence that the newly-
formed has a qualifying relationship with Any further efforts to 
pursue benefits under this proceeding , or under a new petition, must account for this change in the 
ownership of the petitioning U.S. employer. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not established that it has continuously had a qualifying relationship with the 
foreign entity from the time of filing to the present. The Petitioner has not shown that we erred in 
our appellate decision. 
ORDER: The motion to reconsider is denied. 
Cite as Matter of 1- LLC , ID# 1042538 (AAO Feb. 28, 20 18) 
1 http://search .sunbiz .org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch /ByName (last visited Feb. 7, 20 18). 
5