dismissed EB-3 Case: Accounting

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 09712900 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-140, Immigrant Petition for a Skilled Worker 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: MAY 20, 2021 
The Petitioner, a gasoline stations business, seeks to employ the Beneficiary as an in-house accountant. 
It requests skilled worker classification for the Beneficiary under the third preference immigrant category. 
Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 203(b )(3)(A)(i), 8 U.S .C. § 1153(b )(3)(A)(i). This 
employment-based "EB-3" immigrant classification allows a U.S. employer to sponsor a foreign 
national for lawful permanent resident status to work in a position that requires at least two years of 
training or experience . 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition on the ground that the Petitioner did not 
establish that the Beneficiary had a least two years of qualifying experience, as required to meet the 
minimum requirement of the labor certification and to be eligible for classification as a skilled worker. 
On appeal the Petitioner submits a brief and supporting materials, and asserts that the evidence of 
record establishes that the Beneficiary has the requisite experience to meet the terms of the labor 
certification and qualify for skilled worker classification. 
In visa petition proceedings it is the petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the immigration 
benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S .C. § 1361. Upon de nova review, we determine that the 
Petitioner has not met its burden of proof . The Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary 
gained the requisite experience to qualify for skilled worker classification and for the proffered 
position under the terms of the labor certification . Therefore, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
Employment-based immigration generally follows a three-step process . First, an employer obtains an 
approved labor certification (ETA Form 9089) from the U.S. Department ofLabor (DOL). See section 
212(a)(5) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(5) . By approving the labor certification , the DOL certifies 
that there are insufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available for the offered 
position and that employing a foreign national in the position will not adversely affect the wages and 
working conditions of domestic workers similarly employed. See section 212(a)(5)(A)(i)(l)-(11) of the 
Act. Second, the employer files an immigrant visa petition (Form 1-140) with U.S . Citizenship and 
Immigration Services (USCIS). See section 204 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1154. Third, if USCIS 
approves the petition, the foreign national may apply for an immigrant visa abroad or, if eligible, 
adjustment of status in the United States. See section 245 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1255. 
II. ANALYSIS 
To be eligible for classification as a skilled worker a beneficiary must have at least two years of 
training or experience. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(1)(3)(ii)(B). A beneficiary must also meet the specific 
educational, training, experience, and other requirements of the labor certification underlying the 
petition. Id. All requirements must be met by the petition's priority date, 1 which in this case is 
September 28, 2018. See Matter of Wing's Tea House, 16 I&N Dec. 158, 159 (Acting Reg'l Comm'r 
1977). 
A. Requirements of the Labor Certification 
The requirements for the proffered position of in-house accountant are indicated in section Hof the 
labor certification (Job Opportunity Information). The pertinent requirements read as follows: 
4. 
5. 
6. 
6-A. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 
Education: Minimum level required: 
Is training required for the job? 
Is experience in the job offered required? 
How long? 
Is an alternate field of study acceptable? 
Is an alternate combination of education 
and experience acceptable? 
Is a foreign educational equivalent acceptable? 
Is experience in an alternate occupation acceptable? 
High School 
No 
Yes 
24 months 
No 
No 
Yes 
No 
Thus, to meet the requirements of the labor certification and qualify for skilled worker classification, 
the Beneficiary must have ( l) a high school level education, and (2) two years of experience as an in­
house accountant. 
B. Beneficiary's Qualifications 
Section J of the labor certification (Alien Information) asserts that the Beneficiary exceeded the 
minimum educational requirement with a master's degree in business administration (MBA) from 
I I University inl I Georgia, completed in 2018. With its initial evidence the Petitioner 
submitted copies of the Beneficiary's educational credentials which indicate that she earned a Higher 
Secondary Certificate from a school i~ I Pakistan, in 1998 ( awarded in 2002), bachelor's and 
master's degrees from the University! I in 2004 and 2007, and the MBA froml I 
University in February 2018. Thus, the Beneficiary exceeded the minimum educational requirement 
of the labor certification before the priority date of September 28, 2018. 
1 The priority date of an employment-based immigrant petition is the date the underlying labor certification is filed with 
the DOL. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.S(d). 
2 
Section K of the labor certification (Alien Work Experience) asserts that the Beneficiary also exceeded 
the minimum experience requirement, listing two jobs as an in-house accountant totaling close to six 
years of experience at the time the labor certification was filed in September 2018. The specific 
employers and dates of employment were listed as: 
• .__ __________ ___. inl I Georgia, starting on July 1, 2018, and 
ongoing as of the priority date on September 28, 2018. 
•~I ______ ~lin~I __ __.IPakistan, starting on June 10, 2002, and ending on 
December 15, 2007. 
As its initial evidence of the Beneficiary's work experience the Petitioner submitted copies of two 
"experience letters" including: (1) a letter dated September 21, 2018, froml l Manager, on 
the letterhead o~ I i~ I Georgia, stating that the Beneficiary 
had been working with the company since July 1, 2018, as an in-house accountant, and describing her 
job duties; and (2 a letter dated December 15, 2007, froml I Proprietor, on 
the letterhead of.__ ____ ~ inl I Pakistan, stating that the Beneficiary was employed as 
an in-house accountant from June 10, 2002 through December 15, 2007, and describing her job duties. 
The Director issued a request for evidence (RFE) on June 4, 2019, noting that the Beneficiary's prior 
nonimmigrant visa application indicated that she was employed byl I not from 2002 to 
2007 as an in-house accountant, but rather from August 7, 2010, to October 23, 2019 [sic J,2 as an 
assistant accountant, a different job with different duties from those claimed in the labor certification 
and employment verification letter submitted with the instant petition. In response to the RFE the 
Petitioner asserted that the Beneficiary was employed two different times byl I, the first 
time as an in-house accountant from June 2002 to December 2007 and the second time as an assistant 
accountant from August 2010 to October 2013. The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary's experience 
as an assistant accountant was not listed in the labor certification because section K specifically 
instructed the listing of (1) any job the Beneficiary held within the past three years and (2) any earlier 
experience that qualified the Beneficiary for the job offered. Neither of those alternatives applied to 
the Beneficiary's prior job of assistant accountant. Nonetheless the Petitioner submitted another 
"experience letter" from the proprietor ofl I dated October 29, 2013, asserting that the 
Beneficiary was employed as an assistant accountant from August 7, 2010, to October 29, 2013, and 
describing her job duties. The Petitioner also stated that the Beneficiary's accountant position with 
C=::J which began on July 1, 2018, ended on October 31, 2018, after which the Beneficiary worked 
forl Ii~ I Texas, from November 15, 2018, to March 4, 2019. 
The Director issued a notice of intent to deny (NOID) on September 6, 2019, once again pointing to 
the different employment experience claimed for the Beneficiary in this proceeding and in the prior 
nonimmigrant visa application. The Director indicated that the assistant accountant position claimed 
with I I from 2010 to 2013 was relevant experience for the proffered position, that the 
alleged employment withD from November 2018 to March 2019 was a job within the last three 
years, and that both should therefore have been listed in the labor certification accompanying the 
2 Other evidence in the record shows that the termination date of the claimed employment was actually October 29, 2013. 
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instant pet1t10n. The failure to do so, the Director stated, represented an unresolved inconsistency in 
the record and lessened the credibility of the Petitioner's evidence as a whole, citing Matter of Ho, 
19 I&N Dec. 582 (BIA 1988), and Matter of Leung, 16 I&N Dec. 12 (Dist. Dir. 1976). 
In response to the NOID the Petitioner sup]lemented its previously submitted evidence of the 
Beneficiary's employment byl O with two additional letters from the proprietor, one 
entitled "Appointment Letter" and dated June 1, 2002, informing the Beneficiary that she would be 
hired as an in-house accountant on June 10, 2002, the other entitled "Rejoining Appointment Letter" 
and dated August 3, 2010, informing the Beneficiary that she had been re-hired as an assistant 
accountant starting on August 7, 2010. The Petitioner also submitted a photocopy of an "Employee 
Identity Card" froni lwith the Beneficiary's photograph and hand-written entries 
identifying her as an in-house accountant whose "date ofjoining" was June 10, 2002, as well as copies 
of selected monthly "Employee Attendance Registers" ofi I from June 2002 to August 
2007 listing the Beneficiary and several other employees. Addressing the omission from the 
Beneficiary's nonimmigrant visa application of the alleged employment as an in-house accountant 
with.__ ____ ____. in the years 2002-2007, the Petitioner asserted that the application submitted in 
March 2015 only asked for the last five years of the Beneficiary's employment. Therefore, it was 
appropriate to enter the alleged employment wittj I as an assistant accountant in the 
years 2010-2013, but not the earlier alleged employment in the years 2002-2007. As for the omission 
from the labor certification of the Beneficiary's alleged employment withLJfrom November 15, 
2018, to March 4, 2019, the Petitioner pointed out that this employment had not yet begun at the time 
the labor certification application was filed with the DOL in late September 2018. 
The Director denied the petition on October 22, 2019, ruling that the Petitioner had not resolved the 
inconsistencies previously discussed concerning the Beneficiary's employment history. In the 
Director's view, the employee attendance registers and the employee identity card were unreliable 
evidence of the Beneficiary's alleged employment byl I in the years 2002-2007 because 
of their mostly hand-written information. The Director alluded to government records indicating that 
the Beneficiary was a student during some of the time she claimed to be employed byl I 
The Director also noted that identical language appeared in the labor certification and various 
employment verification letters describing the Beneficiary's job duties which, according to the 
Director, "diminishes their probative value." The Director concluded that the Petitioner failed to 
establish that the Beneficiary had the requisite two years of qualifying experience. 
On appeal the Petitioner reiterates its previous explanations regarding the alleged inconsistencies in 
the Beneficiary's employment history as presented in her nonimmigrant visa application of 2015 and 
the labor certification in this proceeding. Arguing for the credibility of the employee attendance 
registers and the employee identity card froni O ,I the Petitioner asserts that hand-written 
entries are standard for small businesses in a third world country like Pakistan. According to the 
Petitioner, no pay records are available froml I because the business is no longer in 
operation, and no tax records were generated by the Beneficiary's employment withl I 
because her salary was exempt from income tax in Pakistan. As for the employment verification letters 
from! I whose dates range from 2002 to 2013, the Petitioner acknowledges that they 
were all prepared in 2019 on old letterheads purportedly kept by the former proprietor, that their 
contents were based on information furnished by the Beneficiary to support the instant petition, and 
4 
that the dates were inserted by the former proprietor to accord with the employment time frame each 
letter addressed. Finally, the Petitioner asserts, and submits supporting evidence, that the 
Beneficiary's academic studies during the time of her alleged employment with I I 
involved night classes or external study, and thus would not have impinged on her workdays. 
We agree with the Petitioner that the Beneficiary's employment histories as presented in her 
nonimmigrant visa application and in the labor certification underlying the instant petition accord with 
the instructions on those respective documents. The 83-page online nonimmigrant visa application 
contains a note on page 32 - beneath the heading "Previous Work/Education/Training Information" -
which reads: "Provide your employment information for the last five years that you were employed." 
travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/PDF-other/DS-160-Example _ 11012019.pdf (last visited May 19, 
2021). Thus, the Beneficiary correctly reported her alleged employment as an assistant accountant 
with! lfrom August 2010 to October 2013 on her nonimmigrant visa application in 
March 2015, and correctly omitted any prior employment withl O I in the years 2002-
2007. As for the labor certification, it specifically instructs at the top of section K: "List all jobs the 
alien has held during the past 3 years. Also list any other experience that qualifies the alien for the job 
opportunity." Thus, the labor certification application filed with the DOL on September 28, 2018, 
correctly listed the job wit~ that began on July 1, 2018, 3 because it was a job held during the past 
three years, as well as the alleged in-house accountant position withl I from June 2002 
to December 2007 because it was experience that would qualify the Beneficiary for job opportunity. 
The alleged assistant accountant position withl O Jin the years 2010-2013 was correctly 
omitted from the labor certification because it was neither a job within the past three years nor 
qualifying experience since the labor certification requires experience as an accountant, not as an 
assistant accountant with different job duties. Furthermore, we agree that the Beneficiary's 
employment with0from November 15, 2018, to March 4, 2019, 4 was properly omitted from the 
labor certification because it did not begin until after the labor certification application was filed with 
the DOL on September 28, 2018. While the job withc=Jstarted and ended before the DOL's 
certification of the ETA Form 9089 on April 16, 2019, it would not have been qualifying experience 
under any circumstances because it post-dated the priority date of September 28, 2018. In accord with 
the foregoing discussion, we reject the Director's determination that there are any inconsistencies 
between the presentation of the Beneficiary's employment history in her 2015 nonimmigrant visa 
application and its presentation in the labor certification of this proceeding. 
Nevertheless, we are not persuaded by the evidence of record that the Beneficiary actually had five 
years of qualifying experience as of the priority date (September 28, 2018). This issue hinrs solely 
on whether the evidence establishes that the Beneficiary was employed byl as an in­
house accountant in the years 2002-2007, since she had less than three months of employment as an 
in-house accountant with0before the priority date and the labor certification's requirement that the 
Beneficiary have two years of experience in the job offered means that her alleged employment by 
I I from 2010 to 2013 as an assistant accountant, with different job duties, would~ 
qualifyin[ experience. As noted previously, the letters submitted by the former proprietor ofL_J 
I a business no longer in operation, were all prepared in 2019 notwithstanding the earlier 
3 As evidence of the Beneficiary's employment b~ the record includes a copy of the 2018 F01m W-2, Wage and Tax 
Statement, issued to her by the company. 
4 The record includes a copy of the 2018 Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, issued byD to the Beneficiary. 
5 
dates typed on the letters. Thus, none of the letters is contemporaneous with the employment they 
claim to verify. We also note a substantive anomaly in the letters insofar as the "Appointment Letter" 
bearing the date of June 1, 2002, stated that the Beneficiary's annual salary as an in-house accountant 
would be Rs 144,000, while her "Rejoining Appointment Letter" bearing the date of August 3, 2010, 
stated that her annual salary as an assistant accountant would be Rs. 216,000. The Petitioner has not 
explained why the Beneficiary's salary would be so much higher in the inferior position of assistant 
accountant than it was in the superior position of a foll in-house accountant. According to the 
Beneficiary she contacted the former proprietor ofl I in 2019, who told her that he had 
no pay records but did have "access to attendance record[s]." Why the former proprietor could still 
provide attendance records, but no pay records, has likewise not been explained. Moreover, there is 
no verification on the attendance records themselves that they were prepared contemporaneously with 
the months they purport to cover between 2002 and 2007. Finally, the photocopied "Employee 
Identity Card" with the date of June 10, 2002, has a feature that calls its authenticity into question. 
Beneath a color photograph of the Beneficiary the name and address of the business,! I 
is printed in dark ink that overlaps the upper left comer of three lines of printed language in lighter ink 
that are too small and indistinct to decipher. This overlap of the card's printed language suggests that 
the card is not genuine, does not date from the time of the Beneficiary's alleged employment in the 
years 2002-2007, and may have been manufactured specifically for the purposes of this proceeding. 
For all of the reasons discussed above, the evidence of the Beneficiary's alleged employment b~ I I I as an in-house accountant in the years 2002-2007 is deficient. The documentation submitted 
by the Petitioner is strewn with inconsistencies and anomalies that have not been explained. As 
previously indicated by the Director, it is incumbent upon a petitioner to resolve any inconsistencies 
in the record by independent objective evidence. Attempts to explain or reconcile such inconsistencies 
will not suffice without competent evidence pointing to where the truth lies. Matter of Ho, 19 I&N 
Dec. 582, at 591-92. Doubt cast on any aspect of the petitioner's evidence also reflects on the 
reliability of the petitioner's remaining evidence. See id. Accordingly, we determine that the 
Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary gained any qualifying experience withl I I I and therefore did not meet the experience requirement of the labor certification or the 
experience requirement for skilled worker classification by the petition's priority date. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary had two years of experience as an in-house 
accountant by the priority date of September 28, 2018. Therefore, the Beneficiary does not qualify 
for the proffered position under the terms of the labor certification or for the requested visa 
classification of skilled worker. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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