remanded EB-1C Case: Telecommunications

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 22629217 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : OCT . 27, 2022 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for Multinational Manager or Executive 
The Petitioner, a telecommunications company, seeks to permanently employ the Beneficiary as its 
"Interconnection Vice President and New Business Development Executive" 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)(l)(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 Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish that ( 1) the Petitioner's foreign affiliate has employed the Beneficiary in a managerial or 
executive capacity for at least one year in the three years preceding the filing of the petition; (2) the 
Beneficiary would be employed in the United States in a managerial or executive capacity; (3) the 
Petitioner had been doing business in the United States for at least one year at the time of filing; and 
( 4) the Petitioner's foreign affiliate was doing business abroad. The Director further concluded, based 
in part on derogatory information from outside the record of proceeding, that the Petitioner and 
Beneficiary had willfully misrepresented material facts relating to the Beneficiary 's employment 
history and the offered U.S. employment. The matter is now before us on appeal. 
In these proceedings, it is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the requested benefit by a 
preponderance of the evidence. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361; Matter ofChawathe, 25 l&N 
Dec. 369, 375 (AAO 2010) . This office reviews the questions in this matter de nova. See Matter of 
Christo 's Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537, 537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de nova review, we will remand the 
matter to the Director for further action and entry of a new decision, consistent with the following 
discussion. 
I. LAW 
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)(l)(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 as a manager or 
executive 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. § 204.5(i)(3). 
II. ANALYSIS 
As noted above, the Director denied the petition on multiple grounds, concluding that the record did 
not establish that (1) 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, (2) that the U.S. and foreign 
entities were doing business as defined in the regulations, and (3) that the Beneficiary would be 
employed in the United States in a managerial or executive capacity. The Director also determined 
that both the Petitioner and Beneficiary had willfully misrepresented facts that are material to 
eligibility for the requested classification. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director's decision contains erroneous conclusions of fact 
that adversely impacted the adjudication of the petition. Further, the Petitioner contends that the 
Director failed to address relevant evidence submitted in response to a notice of intent to deny (NOID). 
The Petitioner objects to the Director's determination that either party willfully misrepresented 
material facts and asserts that the evidence, when considered in its totality, demonstrates that the 
Petitioner and Beneficiary are qualified for the classification sought. 
Upon review, the record supports the Petitioner's contention that there are factual errors in the 
Director's decision and that not all relevant information provided in support of the petition and in 
response to NOID was addressed in the decision, including evidence that was intended to address the 
derogatory information mentioned in the NOID. Further, although the NOID informed the Petitioner 
that the decision may be based on derogatory information from outside the record, that derogatory 
information was not sufficiently disclosed to the Petitioner prior to the denial. An officer must fully 
explain the reasons for denying a visa petition in order to allow the Petitioner a fair opportunity to 
contest the decision and to allow us an opportunity for meaningful appellate review. See 8 C.F.R. § 
103.3(a)(l)(i); see also Matter of M-P-, 20 I&N Dec. 786 (BIA 1994) (finding that a decision must 
fully explain the reasons for denying a motion to allow the respondent a meaningful opportunity to 
challenge the determination on appeal). Here, because the adverse decision did not consider all 
relevant evidence and was based in part on an erroneous conclusion of fact, it did not fully explain the 
reasons for denial. 
While we cannot sustain the appeal based on the record as presently constituted, we will withdraw the 
Director's decision and remand the matter for further review and entry of a new decision. We will 
address the individual grounds for denial below. 
A. Beneficiary's Foreign Employment 
A petition for a multinational manager or executive must be accompanied by evidence that the 
beneficiary has been employed outside the United States in a managerial or executive capacity by a 
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qualifying entity within the same multinational organization for at least one year in the three years 
preceding the filing of the petition. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(A). 1 This petition was filed in 
February 2018 and therefore the Petitioner must demonstrate that the Beneficiary had at least one year 
of qualifying employment abroad between February 2015 and February 2018. Because the 
Beneficiary was already in the United States at the time of filing, following her admission as a visitor, 
the Petitioner must establish that she was employed abroad for at least one year between February 
2015 and her entry on August 20, 2017. Her periods of stay in the United States in B 1/B2 status cannot 
be considered in calculating whether she has the required one year of employment abroad. 
The Director determined that there were inconsistencies in the record with respect to both the 
Beneficiary's job titles and dates of employment with the foreign entity and further concluded that she 
had been "residing in the United States since July 14, 2016" with the exception of "two brief 
interruptions in January and May of 201 7." 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director's decision contains factual errors with respect to the 
Beneficiary's periods of stay in the United States. The Petitioner's response to the NOID included 
probative evidence of her departure from the United States on September 4, 2016, and evidence that 
she did not return until January 20, 2017. It does not appear that the Director considered this evidence. 
While the Beneficiary's September 4, 2016, departure was not recorded on the Beneficiary's 
Department of Homeland Security arrival and departure records, such records clearly show her arrival 
on July 14, 2016, and her arrival on January 10, 2017, indicating that she did in fact depart and re­
enter. The Director's conclusion that she did not depart the United States during this period was 
therefore clearly erroneous. The record indicates that the Beneficiary was in the United States from 
July 14, 2016 to September 4, 2016, from January 10, 2017 to January 20, 2017, and from May 12, 
2017 until May 21, 2017; it does not support the Director's conclusion that she had been residing in 
the United States since January 14, 2016. 
The Director also denied the petition, in part, based on a determination that there are inconsistencies 
in the record concerning the Beneficiary's employment history with the Petitioner's foreign affiliate, 
The Petitioner's initial letter in support of the petition indicated that the 
Beneficiary had been employed by its affiliate in Venezuela since 2007, initially as Legal Vice 
President, and most recently as Interconnection Vice President. The initial evidence also included the 
Beneficiary's resume indicating that she had worked forl I in Venezuela since 2007. The 
Petitioner submitted copies of the Beneficiary's foreign pay receipts for the period January 2017 
through January 2018, but these were not accompanied by English translations. Nevertheless, we note 
that they appear to confirm her job title as "VP Interconnection," and identified her start date with the 
company as "06/11/2015." 
In a request for evidence (RFE), the Director advised the Petitioner that "USCIS records show in 2016 
the beneficiary stated in her nonimmigrant visa application that she was employed as a legal consultant 
for a different organization," that is unrelated to the Petitioner or its Venezuelan affiliate. In response 
1 If a beneficiary is already in the United States working for the same employer or a subsidiary or affiliate of the firm or 
corporation, or other legal entity by which he or she was employed overseas, a petitioner must establish 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. 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(B). Here, the Beneficiary was last admitted as a B 1/B2 visitor 
on August 20, 2017 and was therefore was not working for a qualifying entity in the United States at the time of filing. 
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to the RFE, counsel for the Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary joined its overseas affiliate in 
February 2007 but had an interruption in her employment from 2014 to 2015, when she was enrolled 
in a master's degree program at a Spanish university. Counsel emphasized that she nevertheless had 
more than one year of employment abroad with I I in the three years preceding her entry 
to the United States in August 2017, because she resumed her employment with that entity in 2015. 
The Petitioner's RFE response included copies of Venezuelan Social Security statements showing the 
Beneficiary's employer asl lwith a start date of November 2015, copies of the previously 
submitted salary receipts from 2017, and a "sampling" of older salary receipts froml I 
dated between 2007 and 2013. The pay statements issued between 2007 and 2013 indicated the 
Beneficiary's start date with the company as February 2007 and identified her job title as "legal 
consultant." 
In a subsequent NOID, the Director addressed the Beneficiary's Venezuelan social security 
statements. The Director acknowledged that they indicated her employment withl I since 
November 2015 but questioned the probative value of this evidence in light of the Director's separate 
determination that the Beneficiary had been residing in the United States since July 2016. The Director 
also emphasized other perceived discrepancies in the statements, noting that one appeared to indicate 
that she joined the foreign entity in May 2018, while the two statements seemed to contain 
inconsistencies regarding the number of weeks she worked for the foreign entity in different years. 
The Director also advised the Petitioner that "open-source information in the World Wide Web" 
reflects that the Beneficiary previously indicated that she was employed as "legal counsel" for 
I I between February 2007 and March 2014,2 which "brings into question the beneficiary's 
ability to be employed with the foreign organization through July 2016." The Director acknowledged 
the Beneficiary's earnings statements from 2017 but noted that some of them were issued during 
periods when she was physically present in the United States. 
In response to the NOID, the Petitioner emphasized thatl I employed the Beneficiary in 
Venezuela from November 6, 2015 through her entry to the United States in August 2017, and she 
therefore satisfied the foreign employment requirement for this classification. With respect to the 
information the Beneficiary had provided on her nonimmigrant visa application, the Petitioner 
explained that she accurately identified a different foreign employer when she initially completed and 
filed the application in September 2015. Specifically, the Petitioner explained that the Beneficiary 
continued to provide legal consulting services to lduring her time in Spain but did so as 
an employee of a Venezuelan law firm, which is the employer she identified on her visa application. 
The Petitioner explained that there was a 7-month delay between the Petitioner's submission of her 
visa application and her interview at the U.S. Consulate in April 2016. Thus, while the Petitioner 
acknowledged that the Beneficiary confirmed that the information provided on her visa application 
was still accurate as of April 2016, it maintained she did not willfully misrepresent her employment 
at the time of her interview. It emphasized that the Beneficiary does not recall being asked if there 
had been any changes in her employment since the filing of her application in September 2015 and 
that, if specifically asked, she would have updated that information to reflect her employment with 
2 The Director provided no additional infonnation from this "open source" in the NOTO. In the denial decision, the Director 
indicated that the Beneficiary's Linkedln profile was the source, and she introduced additional information from that 
profile as being derogatory to the Petitioner's claims, but it is unclear whether all infcnmation was obtained from the 
Beneficiary's profile on the same date. 
4 
The Petitioner emphasized that other evidence in the record corroborates that the 
resumed her employment withl I in November 2015. 
The Petitioner's response to the NOID included copies of the Beneficiary's pay receipts from 
for the period May 2016 through August 201 7. These receipts show a start date 
of November 6, 2015 and indicate her job title as "Interconnection V.P." Additionally, the Petitioner 
provided corrected translations of the Beneficiary's Venezuelan Institute of Social Security account 
statements acknowledging that those provided previously contained clear errors that introduced an 
inconsistency regarding her dates of employment with I The corrected translations 
indicate that the Beneficiary commenced employment withl in November 2015 and left 
the company's payroll in May 2018. 3 
The Director denied the petition after concluding that "the question of who the beneficiary's actual 
employer was and the dates she was employed abroad remain." In reaching this determination it does 
not appear that the Director considered the 2016-2017 pay receipts the Petitioner submitted in response 
to the NOID, noting that the documents were not accompanied by English translations required by 8 
C.F.R. § 103.2(b )(3). 4 However, we observe that the pay receipts were submitted with certificates of 
translation that sufficiently comply with the regulatory requirements. This evidence, along with the 
Venezuelan social security statements, is particularly relevant to the Petitioner's claim that she was 
employed by the foreign entity during the relevant period. 
Overall, we agree with the Director that the record contains inconsistencies regarding the Beneficiary's 
employment history with the foreign entity, some of which have not been adequately explained. 
However, there is objective evidence supporting the Petitioner's claim that she commenced 
employment withl in 2007, remained with the company until at least 2013, returned to 
the company after completing her master's degree in 2015, and was working for the affiliate company 
outside the United States until her last entry in August 2017. Most of the inconsistencies in the record 
relate to her job title, duties, and exact dates of employment prior to 2015. 
The Petitioner has not explained why it did not disclose the Beneficiary's interruption in employment 
with the foreign entity at the time of filing. However, it appears that most of that interruption in 
employment occurred outside the relevant three-year period preceding the filing of the petition and as 
such, may not be material to establishing that she meets the foreign employment requirement for this 
classification. Further, as stated above, the Director's adverse findings related to the Beneficiary's 
foreign employment were based, in part, on the erroneous conclusion that she had resided in the United 
States since July 2016. 
Based on the foregoing, we will withdraw the Director's determination that the Petitioner did not 
establish that the Beneficiary was employed by its foreign affiliate for at least one year in the three 
years preceding the filing of this petition, as well as the Director's determination that the Petitioner 
3 The record reflects that the Beneficiary obtained her U.S. employment authorization document in May 2018 and has been 
on the Petitioner's payroll since that time. 
4 The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b )(3) states: Any document containing foreign language submitted to USCTS shall be 
accompanied by a full English language translation which the translator has certified as complete and accurate, and by the 
translator's certification that he or she is competent to translate from the foreign language into English. 
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and Beneficiary willfully misrepresented material facts regarding her employment abroad. While the 
record may ultimately support these determinations, the issues discussed above require further review 
and preclude us from affirming the Director's conclusions. 
The Director is instructed to review the record of proceeding in light of the foregoing discussion and 
may issue a new notice of intent to deny after a complete review of the record. If the Director's new 
decision will be based on derogatory information of which the Petitioner may be unaware, such 
information must be fully disclosed in a new NOID. As noted, the Director appears to have based her 
decision, in part, on information obtained from the Beneficiary's Linkedln profile, but did not provide 
sufficient notice of this potentially derogatory information in the NOID. As many of the unresolved 
questions in the record revolve around the Beneficiary's break in employment with the foreign entity, 
additional independent, objective evidence to corroborate her employment outside the United States 
between 2015 and 2017 may be requested. 5 For example, although the Petitioner submitted some 
evidence that the Beneficiary resumed employment with the foreign entity in November 2015, it did 
not provide any pay statements dated prior to May 2016. Evidence to corroborate the Beneficiary's 
receipt of wages, such as personnel records, bank records or tax documentation, may also be requested. 
If the Director determines that the Beneficiary had the requisite one-year of employment abroad, it 
remains the Petitioners burden to establish that such employment was in a managerial or executive 
capacity as defined at section 101(a)(44)(A) or (B) of the Act. The Director addressed the 
Beneficiary's claimed foreign job duties in the NOID, but ultimately, did not appear to reach a 
conclusion as to whether the position of "VP Interconnection" satisfied one of the statutory definitions. 
Accordingly, the Director may request any additional evidence needed to determine whether the 
Beneficiary's employment abroad establishes her eligibility for classification as a multinational 
manager or executive. 
B. Doing Business 
The regulations require that the Petitioner provide evidence that it has been doing business for at least 
one year at the time of filing the Form I-140. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(i)(3)(i)(d). Further, the term 
"multinational" means that the qualifying entity, or its affiliate, or subsidiary, conducts business in 
two or more countries, one of which is the United States. Therefore, the Petitioner must show that the 
entity that employed the Beneficiary abroad continues to do business. The Director denied the petition, 
in part, based on a determination that the record did not establish that the Petitioner and its foreign 
affiliate are doing business. 
With respect to the foreign entity's business activities, the Petitioner's initial evidence included 
photographs of the interior and exterior of the office building occupied byl I copies of 
approximately 40 invoices issued by to its clients between January and December 
2017, and documentation of payments the company made to SENIAT, Venezuela's revenue service, 
throughout 2017. However, the invoices and documentation of tax payments were not accompanied 
by English translations. 
5 We also note that the Beneficiary's social security statements reflect that she worked "0" weeks in 2014 which appears 
to contradict the Petitioner's claim that she worked for its foreign affiliate for part of that year, and for a Venezuelan law 
firm that provided consulting services to the foreign affiliate for the remainder of the year. 
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The Director did not address the foreign entity's business activities or any deficiencies in the submitted 
evidence in the RFE. In the NOID, the issue of the foreign entity's ongoing business operations was 
mentioned only in passing. Specifically, the Director noted that the record did "not include any objective 
documentary evidence to show that the foreign organization is doing business." The Director did not 
acknowledge the evidence submitted at the time of filing or why such evidence was insufficient. Further, 
the NOID did not include a list of suggested evidence the Petitioner could provide to meet this 
requirement. In the denial decision, the Director concluded that the record is "devoid of evidence 
showing that the foreign entity has been operational or was operational at the time of filing." 
The record does not support the Director's conclusion that Petitioner's submissions lacked any 
evidence of the foreign entity's business activities. Further, the Director did not provide the Petitioner 
with sufficient notice of the deficiencies in the evidence that it submitted in support of this 
requirement. Accordingly, the Director's adverse determination with respect to the foreign entity's 
business operations is withdrawn. As the matter will be remanded, the Director is instructed to clearly 
address this issue in a new RFE or NOID, and allow the Petitioner a reasonable opportunity to respond, 
prior to issuing a new decision. 
With respect to the Petitioner's own business activities, the record contains copies of the Petitioner's 
formation documents, local business licenses for the period 2015 to 2020, lease agreements, photographs 
ofits physical premises, copies of its payroll documentation and state and federal quarterly filings through 
2020, copies of all tax returns requested by the Director showing significant gross receipts and rents paid, 
dozens of invoices issued to clients in 2017 and 2018, and copies of monthly bank statements from 2017 
and 2018 which show transactions with the clients named in the invoices. 
In both the RFE and the NOID, the Director informed the Petitioner that there were questions regarding 
the company's business operations because unidentified "open sources in the World Wide Web" 
showed that the building at the address listed on the petition and in the lease agreements was vacant 
and listed as being on the market. The Director is obligated to not only provide notice of any 
derogatory information that is discovered outside of the record of proceedings, but to make that 
derogatory information part of the record. 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(l6)(i). The Director may make such 
evidence part of the record by describing it in the notice, provided there is sufficient detail that the 
Petitioner may make an informed rebuttal. 
The Director's adverse determination regarding this issue focuses primarily on the Petitioner's lease 
agreements and questions their validity based on information found on the internet. Although the 
decision identifies sources of some of this potentially derogatory information, such information should 
have been disclosed to the Petitioner previously in the RFE or NOID. Further the Director's 
conclusion that "the petitioner has failed to provide documentation" showing that it was doing business 
as defined in the regulations suggests that no weight was given to the evidence of business activities 
listed above, some of which was specifically requested by the Director to establish that the Petitioner 
was doing business. 
Accordingly, we will also withdraw the Director's determination that the Petitioner did not meet its 
burden to establish that it had been doing for at least one year at the time the petition was filed. Any 
new RFE or NOID should specifically describe any derogatory information that may adversely impact 
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the decision on this issue, identify its source, and advise the Petitioner of evidence it may submit to 
rebut such information . 
C. U.S. Employment in a Managerial or Executive Capacity 
The final issue addressed in the decision is whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary 
would be employed in the United States in a managerial or executive capacity as defined at sections 
101(a)(44)(A) and (B) of the Act. 
In the denial letter, the Director addressed the evidence submitted in support of the petition, including 
descriptions of the Beneficiary's proposed duties, the Petitioner's organizational charts and evidence 
of wages paid to employees. However, the Director's determination that the Petitioner did not meet 
this eligibility requirement appears to have been based on a determination that the record contained 
unresolved inconsistencies and a determination that the Petitioner had willfully misrepresented 
material facts regarding the U.S. employment. The Director also raised concerns based on the 
Petitioner's statements that the Beneficiary's proposed staff, at least initially, would be in Venezuela, 
but neither the statute nor regulations prohibit a manager or executive from receiving support from 
other staff within the same multinational organization. 
The petition was filed in February 2018 when the Petitioner was seeking to fill a new position within 
its U.S. operations. At the time the Petitioner responded to the Director's NOID in July 2020, the 
Beneficiary had already been working in the position for over two years and the submitted payroll 
summaries for 2020 show that the company's staffing had increased. Therefore, some of the changes 
in staffing cited as inconsistencies appear to have been the result of the passage of time. 
The Director's determination that the submitted evidence of the Beneficiary's job duties and 
organizational structure was inconsistent and lacked credibility is not sufficiently supported by the 
record and did reflect consideration of all evidence submitted in support of the petition . While the 
record may raise valid concerns regarding the ability of the U.S . company to support the proposed 
managerial or executive capacity as of the date of filing, it does not support the Director's 
determination that the Petitioner willfully misrepresented material facts regarding the proposed U.S . 
employment. Accordingly, the Director's decision with respect to this issue is withdrawn. On remand, 
the Director should review the record and may address the Beneficiary's proposed employment in a 
new RFE or NOID prior to issuing a new decision. 
III. CONCLUSION 
For the reasons discussed, the Director 's decision is withdrawn. On remand, the Director may issue a 
new request for evidence or notice of intent to deny allowing the Petitioner an opportunity to provide 
additional evidence relevant to the issues discussed above , and any other evidence deemed necessary 
to demonstrate eligibility for the classification sought, before issuing a new decision. 
ORDER: The Director's decision is withdrawn. The matter is remanded for the entry of a new 
decision consistent with the foregoing analysis. 
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