dismissed EB-1C Case: Management Consulting

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF M-&C-, INC. 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: JUNE 26, 2018 
APPEAL OF NEBRASKA SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
PETITION: FORM I-140, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR ALIEN WORKER 
The Petitioner, a management consulting firm, seeks to permanently employ the Beneficiary as an 
engagement manager under the first preference immigrant classification for multinational executives 
or managers. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b)(1)(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 Beneficiary had at least one year of qualifying employment abroad 
during the three years preceding her entry as a nonimmigrant. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director miscalculated the dates during which the 
Beneficiary needed to accrue qualifying employment abroad. The Petitioner states that the Director 
should have considered. the Benef1ciary' s employment before 20 II, rather than before 2015. 
Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
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)(I)(C) of the Act. 
The Form I,140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, must include a statement from an authorized 
official of the petitioning United States employer which demonstrates that the beneficiary has been 
employed abroad in a managerial or executive capacity for at least one year in the three years preceding 
the filing of the petition, that the beneficiary is coming to work in the United States for the same 
employer or a subsidiary or affiliate of the foreign employer, and that the prospective U.S. employer has 
been doing business for at least one year. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.50)(3). 
Malter of M -&C -, Inc. 
II. QUALIFYING EXPERIENCE ABROAD 
If the Beneficiary is already in the United States working for the foreign employer or its subsidiary 
or affiliate, then the regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(B) requires the Petitioner to submit a 
statement from an authorized official of the petitioning United States employer which demonstrates 
that, in the three years preceding entry as a nonimmigrant, the Beneficiary was 'employed by the 
entity abroad for at least one year in a managerial or executive capacity. 
The Director found that the Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary was employed abroad for 
at least one year out of the three years before she entered the United States as an L-lAnonimmigrant 
in 2015. On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director should have calculated the employment 
based on an earlier entry in 2011. We disagree. 
When the Petitioner filed the Form I-l40petition in June 2016, the Beneficiary was in the United 
States working for the Petitioner in L-1A nonimmigrant status. The Petitioner initially provided the 
following chronology for the Beneficiary's employment: 
June 2009 
February 2010 
June 2011 
May 2013 
May 2015 
The Petitioner's foreign affiliate hired the Beneficiary as a 
knowledge analyst. 
The foreign affiliate promoted the Beneficiary to a managerial 
position as a management. consultant. 
The Beneficiary entered the United States as an L-IB 
nonimmigrant to work for the Petitioner as a management 
consultant. 
The Beneficiary took "academic leave to pursue her MBA degree" 
as an F-1 nonimmigrant student. 
The Beneficiary re-entered the· United States as an L-lA 
nonimmigrant to resume employment with the Petitioner as a 
management consultant. 
The submitted date ranges did not provide enough information about the Beneficiary's employment. 
Therefore, in a request for evidence, the Director asked for "documentary evidence to establish the 
specific dates of employment abroad and in the United States." The Director also raised other 
issues. The Petitioner's response addressed the other issues, but the Petitioner did not provide exact 
dates relating to the Beneficiary's employment. 
The Director denied the petition, stating: 
[T]he beneficiary was working for the U.S. entity from May 2012 to May 2013 and 
then not employed as a student from May 2013 to May 2015 .... [T]he beneficiary 
was not employed by the qualifying foreign entity for at least one year preceding the 
beneficiary's entry as an L~ 1 A Intracompany Transferee Executive or Manager to 
work for the petitioner. 
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Matter of M-&C-, Inc. 
The Director noted that "the petitioner did not directly address[] the interruption in employment" 
despite being asked for "the exact date of the beneficiary's transfer to the United States and a 
timeline of the beneficiary's work history for both the petitioning entity and the employer abroad." 
On appeal, the Petitioner states that the Director erred by considering the Beneficiary's change of 
status in 2015, instead of her prior entry in 2011. The Petitioner asserts that, because the Beneficiary 
entered the United States in 2011 to work for the Petitioner as an L-1B nonimmigrant, she accrued 
qualifying employment between 2009 and 2011. 
The Petitioner asserts that "the time spent by the alien in the U.S. in lawful status for [the petitioning 
organization] will not interrupt the required one year of continuous employment abroad." The 
Petitioner's assertion is correct; the Beneficiary's U.S. employment from 20 II to 2013 did not 
interrupt the Beneficiary's qualifying employment abroad, because the Beneficiary entered the 
United States as a nonimmigrant to work for a U.S. employer related to her foreign employer. 
The issue in this case, however, is the time that the Beneficiary spent in the United States not 
working for the Petitioner between 2013 and 2015. 
The Petitioner cites an unpublished appellate decision from 2009 to support its contention that "the 
AAO [Administrative Appeals Office] has consistently confirmed that [U.S. Citizenship and 
Immigration Services (USCIS)J may reach over an admission and subsequent stay" when a given 
beneficiary was admitted to work for the same petitioner or a related entity. The 2009 decision is 
not a published precedent, and therefore it is not binding in the present case, but it is instructive to 
examine the extent to which the cited decision supports the Petitioner's argument. 
In the 2009 decision, which related to an L-1 nonimmigrant petition, we held that the beneficiary's 
admission as an L-2 nonimmigrant was not for the purpose of working for the L-1 petitioner, even 
though the L-2 nonimmigrant obtained employment authorization and worked for that employer. A 
key portion of the decision reads as follows: 
[A]ccording to the plain purpose of the Act and regulations, USCIS may not reach over 
any admission and subsequent stay, including an admission and stay in L-2 status, unless 
that admission was "for a branch of the same employer or a parent affiliate, or 
subsidiary thereof[or] brief trips to the United States for business or pleasure." 8 C.F.R. 
§ 214.2(1)(1)(ii)(A). Unless the authorized period of stay in the United States is either 
brief or "on behalf' of the employer, the period of stay will be interruptive of the 
required one year. See 52 Fed. Reg. 5738, 5742 (Feb. 26, 1987) 
Matter of W-L-, Inc. 5 (AAO Oct. 22, 2009). The decision was not an affirmative finding that, once 
admitted to work for a U.S. employer, a beneficiary remains indefinitely entitled to status as an L-1 
nonimmigrant or as a multinational manager or executive. We must look at the purpose not only of 
the admission, but also of the subsequent stay. In Matter of S-P-, Inc., Adopted Decision 2018-01 
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Matter of M-&C-, Inc. 
(AAO Mar. 19, 2018), we held that if a beneficiary's qualifying employment is interrupted for more 
than two years, then that interruption is disqualifying, whether that interruption occurred while the 
beneficiary was abroad or in the United States. We explained: · 
We decline to construe the statute and regulations as establishing a more lenient 
standard for a beneficiary already in the United States than for one seeking admission 
from abroad. A single nonimmigrant entry to work for the Petitioner does not 
permanently qualify a beneficiary for EB-1 classification, regardless of the passage of 
time and changes of employment that occur after that entry. 
!d. at 3. As an adopted decision, S-P- constitutes binding policy guidance for USCIS employees, 
including AAO appeals officers. 
The Petitioner does not dispute that the Beneficiary's employment with the organization ended in 
May 2013 and resumed in May 2015, and has not provided exact dates, corroborated by verifiable 
evidence, that would show whether the interruption was longer than two years. The Director 
requested a more precise timeline, but the Petitioner did not provide that information. An 
incomplete response to a request for evidence shall be considered a request for a decision based on 
the available evidence. See 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(ll). 
The Director acknowledged that the Beneficiary's L-1B status was valid until May 23, 2013, and 
that her L-lA status took effect on May 12,2015. But the dates of the Beneficiary's various changes 
of status do not necessarily correlate exactly to changes in the Beneficiary's employment. Even if 
they did in this case, a gap of 12 days or more be.tween the Beneficiary's last day of work abroad and 
her arrival in the United States would push the total interruption past two years. There is no 
presumption of eligibility; the burden is on the Petitioner to show the gap lasted two years or less, 
rather than on the Director to show it lasted more than two years. 
Because the documented gap is so close to two years, exact dates are necessary to establish 
eligibility. Furthermore, the need for corroboration is evident when we consider discrepancies in the 
submitted documentation. For instance, the Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary first entered the 
United States as an L-1 nonimmigrant in June 2011, but the Beneficiary first received that visa in 
October 2010 and made numerous entries before the following June. Some of these entries occurred 
less than a year after her promotion to a managerial position. Furthermore, the Beneficiary's 
frequent international travel in 2010-2011 is not inherently interruptive of her employment abroad, 
because the trips were generally brief, but time that the Beneficiary spent in the United States cannot 
affirmatively count toward the required year of employment abroad. 
The Petitioner has not established the length of the interruption in the Beneficiary's qualifying 
employment, and therefore the Petitioner has not established the Beneficiary's eligibility for the 
benefit sought. · · 
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Matter of M -&C -, Inc. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary was employed abroad for at least one year 
during the statutory three-year period prior to the filing of the petition. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
Cite as Matter ofM-&C-, Inc., ID# 1404435 (AAO June 26, 2018) 
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