dismissed EB-1C Case: Import/Export

identifying data deleted to 
ptrevent clearly unwarranted 
invMtioa of penonal privac) 
PlJRLTC COpy 
DAjf'R 1 2 201~FFICE: TEXAS SERVICE CENTER 
INRE: Petitioner: 
Beneficiary: 
U.S. Department of Homeland Security 
U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 
Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) 
20 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., MS 2090 
Washington, DC 20529-2090 
U. S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
FILE: 
PETITION: Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker as a Multinational Executive or Manager Pursuant to 
Section 203(b)(1)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.c. § 1153(b)(1)(C) 
ON BEHALF OF PETITIONER: 
INSTRUCTIONS: 
Enclosed please find the decision of the Administrative Appeals Office in your case. All of the documents 
related to this matter have been returned to the office that originally decided your case. Please be advised that 
any further inquiry that you might have concerning your case must be made to that office. 
If you believe the law was inappropriately applied by us in reaching our decision, or you have additional 
information that you wish to have considered, you may file a motion to reconsider or a motion to reopen. The 
specific requirements' for filing such a request can be found at 8 C.F.R. § 103.5. All motions must be 
submitted to the office that originally decided your case by filing a Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, 
with a fee of $630. Please be aware that 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(1)(i) requires that any motion must be filed 
within 30 days of the decision that the motion seeks to reconsider or reopen. 
Thank you, 
I~erry Rhew 
crrhief, Administrative Appeals Office 
www.uscis.gov 
Page 2 
DISCUSSION: The preference visa petition was denied by the Director, Texas Service Center. The matter is 
now before the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) on appeal. The appeal will be dismissed. 
The petitioner is a limited liability company organized in the State of Florida that claims to be engaged in the 
import, export, purchase, sale and distribution of various products and services, including clothing, home 
decorations, school books, and computers. It seeks to employ the beneficiary as its president/general 
manager. Accordingly, the petitioner endeavors to classify the beneficiary as an employment-based 
immigrant pursuant to section 203(b)(1)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act), 8 U.S.c. 
§ 1153(b )(1 )(C), as a multinational executive or manager. 
The director denied the petition based on two independent grounds of ineligibility: 1) the petitioner failed to 
establish that the beneficiary would be employed in the United States on a permanent basis; and 2) the 
petitioner failed to establish that it had been doing business for one full year prior to the date the Form 1-140 
was filed. 
On appeal, counsel disputes the director's conclusions asserting that there IS no legal basis for finding 
ineligibility. 
Section 203(b) of the Act states in pertinent part: 
(1) Priority Workers. -- Visas shall first be made available ... to qualified immigrants who 
are aliens described in any of the following subparagraphs (A) through (C): 
* * * 
(C) Certain Multinational Executives and Managers. -- An alien is described 
in this subparagraph if the alien, in the 3 years preceding the time of the 
alien's application for classification and admission into the United States 
under this subparagraph, has been employed for at least 1 year by a firm or 
corporation or other legal entity or an affiliate or subsidiary thereof and who 
seeks to enter the United States in order to continue to render services to the 
same employer or to a subsidiary or affiliate thereof in a capacity that is 
managerial or executive. 
The language of the statute is specific in limiting this provision to only those executives and managers who 
have previously worked for a firm, corporation or other legal entity, or an affiliate or subsidiary of that entity, 
and who are coming to the United States to work for the same entity, or its affiliate or subsidiary. 
A United States employer may file a petition on Form 1-140 for classification of an alien under section 
203(b)(1)(C) of the Act as a multinational executive or manager. No labor certification is required for this 
classification. The prospective employer in the United States must furnish a job offer in the form of a 
statement which indicates that the alien is to be employed in the United States in a managerial or executive 
capacity. Such a statement must clearly describe the duties to be performed by the alien. 8 C.F.R. § 
204.5(j)(5). 
Page 3 
First, with regard to the permanent nature of the proposed employment, the AAO notes that the reasoning for 
the director's determination is not clearly stated. The director appears to base the decision on the perceived 
intent of the petitioner to employ the beneficiary on a temporary or nonpermanent basis. This issue is not 
germane to the visa petition adjudication. If an employment-based immigrant visa petition is approved, an 
alien must subsequently show at the time of adjustment of status that the offer of employment continues to 
exist and demonstrate an intent to accept the offer of employment. See Matter of Rajah, 25 I&N Dec. 127, 
132-33 (BIA 2009); Matter of Cardoso, 13 I&N Dec. 228, 230 (BIA 1969). However, an alien beneficiary is 
not required to establish an intent to remain at the certified job indefinitely. See Yui Sing Tse v. INS, 596 F.2d 
831, 835 (9th Cir. 1979) (finding that an alien need not intend to remain at the certified job forever, but at the 
time of obtaining lawful permanent resident status, both the employer and the alien must intend that the alien 
be employed in the job); see also Matter of Tien, 17 I&N Dec. 436 (BIA 1980), rev'd, Pei-Chi Tien v. INS, 
638 F.2d 1324 (5th Cir. 1981). 
The AAO hereby withdraws the first ground as a basis for finding ineligibility and will focus this discussion 
on the second ground that served as a basis for denying the petition-the petitioner's business activity during 
the one-year prior to the filing of the instant Form 1-140. 
Accordingly, the primary issue in this proceeding is whether the petItIoner has satisfied 8 C.F.R. 
§ 204.5(j)(3)(i)(D), which requires the petitioner to provide evidence establishing that it has been doing 
business for at least one year prior to filing the Form 1-140. The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(2) defines 
doing business as "the regular, systematic, and continuous provision of goods and/or services by a firm, 
corporation, or other entity and does not include the mere presence of an agent or office." 
In the present matter, neither the evidence submitted by the petitioner initially in support of the Form 1-140 
nor the evidence submitted in response to the director's request for additional evidence is sufficient to 
establish that the petitioner had been doing business since February 4, 2007, or one year prior to the date the 
Form 1-140 was filed. Therefore, the director denied the petition in a decision dated July 30, 2009, 
concluding that the petitioner failed to establish that it satisfied the filing requirement specified at 8 C.F.R. 
§ 204.5(j)(3)(i)(D). 
On appeal, counsel submits a brief asserting that the petitioner has been doing business since September 27, 
2006, the day after its articles of organization were filed with the State of Florida. Counsel offers the 
petitioner's bank statements from September 2006 to March 2007 and the petitioner's sales and use tax returns 
for January through March of 2007 as evidence that the petitioner was doing business during the requisite 
time period. 
The AAO finds that the supporting evidence submitted on appeal is not sufficient to establish that the 
petitioner was doing business for the requisite one-year time period commencing in February 2007. 
Neither bank statements nor tax returns are sufficient to establish that an entity is or has been engaged in 
business activity on a "regular, systematic, and continuous" basis as defined at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(2). Rather, 
where an entity's business involves sales, purchases, and/or importing and exporting of goods, the submitted 
evidence should demonstrate that the petitioner has been engaged in these specific business activities on a regular, 
systematic, and continuous manner. Evidence of this nature would include copies of purchase and sales invoices, 
shipping documents, customs forms, or other similar documents that would be generated in the daily course of 
business. 
Page 4 
While the petitioner has provided sales invoices for February and March of 2007, the petitioner did not provide 
similar documentation to account for the remaining ten months of the requisite 12-month period. The AAO is 
therefore unable to concluded, as no evidence has been submitted, that the petitioner continued to engage in 
purchase, sales, import, and export business transactions from April 2007 until February 2008 when the petition 
was filed. As the petitioner has failed to satisfy the initial filing requirement that is specified at 8 C.F.R. § 
204.5U)(3)(i)(D), the instant petition cannot be approved. 
Additionally, the AAO notes that prior to having been issued a nonimmigrant visa for temporary employment 
in the L-1A visa classification, the beneficiary was admitted temporarily to the United States as a B-2 
nonimmigrant visitor for pleasure or tourism. The beneficiary's stay at that time was conditioned on the 
maintenance of the B-2 nonimmigrant status and compliance "with the conditions" of that status. See § 
237(a)(1)(C)(i) of the Act, 8 U.S.c. § 1227(a)(1)(C)(i). In the present matter, counsel claims that the 
petitioner had been doing business since September 2006 and that the petitioner's Form 1-129 L-1A petition 
seeking to employ the beneficiary as an intracompany transferee was not approved until January 2007. 
Accordingly, it appears that the petitioner had no employees to conduct business in the United States prior to 
January 2007. 1 Doubt cast on any aspect of the petitioner's proof may, of course, lead to a reevaluation of the 
reliability and sufficiency of the remaining evidence offered in support of the visa petition. Matter of Ho, 19 
I&N Dec. 582, 591 (BIA 1988). 
Furthermore, while not addressed in the director's decision, the AAO finds that the petitioner failed to 
establish that the beneficiary was employed abroad or that he would be employed in the United States in a 
qualifying managerial or executive capacity. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(5); see also § 101(a)(44)(A) and (B) of 
the Act. The record lacks detailed descriptions of the beneficiary's foreign and proposed employment and 
thus precludes the AAO from being able to assess the managerial or executive capacity of the specific tasks 
that comprised the foreign employment and those tasks that would comprise the proposed employment with 
the U.S. entity. Reciting the beneficiary's vague job responsibilities or broadly-cast business objectives is not 
sufficient. The actual duties themselves will reveal the true nature of the employment. Fedin Bros. Co., Ltd. 
v. Sava, 724 F. Supp. 1103, 1108 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), affd, 905 F.2d 41 (2d. Cir. 1990). Without a delineation 
of the beneficiary's specific tasks in the foreign and U.S. positions, the AAO is unable to determine whether 
the beneficiary was primarily employed abroad and whether he would be primarily employed in the United 
States in a qualifying managerial or executive capacity. 
An application or petition that fails to comply with the technical requirements of the law may be denied by 
the AAO even if the Service Center does not identify all of the grounds for denial in the initial decision. See 
Spencer Enterprises, Inc. v. United States, 229 F. Supp. 2d 1025, 1043 (E.D. Cal. 2001), affd, 345 F.3d 683 
(9th Cir. 2003); see also Dar v. INS, 891 F.2d 997, 1002 n. 9 (2d Cir. 1989)(noting that the AAO reviews 
1 While the AAO acknowledges that a beneficiary's inadmissibility cannot serve as a basis for denying a visa 
petition, if the beneficiary was the petitioner's sole employee prior to January 2007, as the evidence on record 
suggests, this would indicate that the beneficiary was employed in the United States prior to having obtained 
employment authorization. The beneficiary's unlawful employment as a B-2 nonimmigrant visitor would 
constitute a failure to maintain and comply with the conditions of his B-2 nonimmigrant status under section 
237(a)(1)(C)(i) of the Act and would possibly render the beneficiary removable under section 237(a)(1)(C)(i) 
of the Act and consequently inadmissible under section 212(a)(9)(A) of the Act. 
· , 
Page 5 
appeals on a de novo basis). Therefore, based on the additional grounds of ineligibility discussed above, this 
petition cannot be approved. 
As a final note, service records show the petitioner's previously approved L-1 employment of the beneficiary. 
Although the AAO acknowledges that the statutory definitions for managerial and executive capacity are the 
same for L-1 nonimmigrant petitions and 1-140 immigrant petitions, there are significant differences between 
the eligibility requirements for the two visa classifications. 
Moreover, each nonimmigrant and immigrant petition is a separate record of proceeding with a separate 
burden of proof; each petition must stand on its own individual merits. United States Citizenship and 
Immigration Services (USCIS) is not required to assume the burden of searching through previously provided 
evidence submitted in support of other petitions to determine the approvability of the petition at hand in the 
present matter. The prior nonimmigrant approvals do not preclude US CIS from denying an extension 
petition. See e.g. Texas A&M Univ. v. Upchurch, 99 Fed. Appx. 556, 2004 WL 1240482 (5th Cir. 2004). 
Similarly, the approval of a nonimmigrant petition in no way guarantees that USCIS will approve an 
immigrant petition filed on behalf of the same beneficiary. USCIS denies many 1-140 immigrant petitions 
after approving prior nonimmigrant 1-129 L-1 petitions. See, e.g., Q Data ConSUlting, Inc. v. INS, 293 F. 
Supp. 2d at 25; lKEA US v. US Dept. of Justice, 48 F. Supp. 2d 22 (D.D.C. 1999); Fedin Brothers Co. Ltd. v. 
Sava, 724 F. Supp. 1103 (E.D.N.Y. 1989). 
Finally, the AAO's authority over the service centers is comparable to the relationship between a court of 
appeals and a district court. Even if a service center director had approved the nonimmigrant petitions on 
behalf of the beneficiary, the AAO would not be bound to follow the contradictory decision of a service 
center. Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra v. INS, 2000 WL 282785 (E.D. La.), affd, 248 F.3d 1139 (5th Cir. 
2001), cert. denied, 122 S.Ct. 51 (2001). 
The petition will be denied for the above stated reasons, with each considered as an independent and 
alternative basis for denial. In visa petition proceedings, the burden of proving eligibility for the benefit 
sought remains entirely with the petitioner. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. The petitioner has not 
sustained that burden. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed.