dismissed L-1A Case: Floor Cleaning And Restoration

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 15858187 
Motion on Administrative Appeals Office Decision 
Form 1-129, Petition for L-lA Manager or Executive 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : MAR . 19, 2021 
The Petitioner, a floor cleaning and restoration service, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary in 
the United States as a managing member under the L-lA nonimmigrant classification for intracompany 
transferees. Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 101(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(L). 
The L-lA classification allows a corporation or other legal entity (including its affiliate or subsidiary) to 
transfer a qualifying foreign employee to the United States to work temporarily in a managerial or 
executive capacity. 
The Director of the Vermont Service Center had approved a previous petition under the "new office" 
provisions at 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v). 1 In the present petition, the Petitioner sought a second year under 
the new office provisions. The Director declined the Petitioner's request to treat the petition as a second 
new office petition, and instead considered the petition to be a request to extend the validity of the 
prior new office petition. The Director denied the extension petition, concluding that the record did 
not establish, as required, that the former new office could now support a managerial or executive 
capacity after its frrst year of operations. 
The Petitioner appealed that decision, asserting that a petitioner can file a second new office petition 
on behalf of the same beneficiary. We dismissed that appeal, because the regulations provide for only 
one year of L-1 status in a new office. We also determined that the Petitioner no longer qualified as a 
new office when it filed the present petition in April 2017. 
The Petitioner filed a motion to reconsider, contending that a second new office petition could be 
approved because the regulations do not expressly prohibit such an approval. We dismissed the 
motion, with a determination that the parameters of new office petitions are determined by what the 
regulations specifically allow, rather than by what those regulations fail to prohibit. The matter is now 
before us on a motion to reopen. 
1 A "new office" is an organization that has been doing business in the United States through a parent , branch, affiliate, or 
subsidiary for less than one year. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(F). The regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v)(C) allows a 
"new office" operation one year within the date of approval of the petition to support an executive or managerial position . 
In these proceedings, it is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the requested benefit. See 
Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. Upon review, we will grant the motion in part and dismiss 
it in part. The underlying petition will remain denied. 
I. LAW 
To establish eligibility for the L-lA nonimmigrant visa classification in a petition involving a new 
office, a qualifying organization must have employed the beneficiary in a managerial or executive 
capacity for one continuous year within three years preceding the beneficiary's application for 
admission into the United States. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v)(B). In addition, the beneficiary must seek 
to enter the United States temporarily to continue rendering his or her services to the same employer 
or a subsidiary or affiliate thereof in a managerial or executive capacity. Id. 
The petitioner must submit evidence to demonstrate that the new office will be able to support a 
managerial or executive position within one year. This evidence must establish that the petitioner 
secured sufficient physical premises to house its operation and disclose the proposed nature and scope 
of the entity, its organizational structure, its financial goals, and the size of the U.S. investment. See 
generally, 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v). 
A motion to reopen must state the new facts to be proved in the reopened proceeding and be supported 
by affidavits or other documentary evidence. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(2). A motion that does not meet 
applicable requirements shall be dismissed. 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(4). 
II. ANALYSIS 
The Petitioner previously filed a petition for a new office in January 2016. The Director approved that 
petition on April 14, 2016, granting the Beneficiary L-lA status until April 13, 2017. The Petitioner 
filed the present petition on April 11, 201 7, and requested another one year period from April 11, 201 7 
to April 10, 2018 under the new office provisions. The Petitioner contended that it still qualified as a 
new business, partly because of significant changes to its business model and partly because the 
company did not begin doing business until July 2016. 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the Petitioner did not submit "evidence of extraordinary 
circumstances which prevented the beneficiary from immediately performing his job duties and 
executing the business plan he presented in the new office filing." On appeal from that decision, the 
Petitioner stated that the "regulations do not specifically prohibit the filing of a second new [office] 
L-lA petition," and that the Petitioner therefore "should be able to file a second new office petition, 
and receive another full year of L-lA eligibility, without regard to the need to show extenuating 
circumstances." We dismissed the appeal, stating: "There is no provision for providing 'another full 
year of L-lA eligibility' under the terms of a new office petition, with or without extenuating 
circumstances." 
The Petitioner then filed a motion to reconsider, asserting that the regulations do not specifically 
preclude a second full year as a new office. We dismissed the motion, stating: 
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Immigration benefits can only be approved within the limitations established by the 
statute and regulations. The regulations do not need to specifically prohibit a second 
year as a new office; they do not expressly permit a second year. The new office 
provisions are regulatory, rather than statutory. Therefore, the absence of a regulatory 
provision for a second year as a new office rules out approval for a second year. 
Now, on a motion to reopen, the Petitioner submits new evidence in an effort to show that "extraordinary 
extenuating circumstances outside of Petitioner's control ... caused a delay of business operations," and 
therefore the petitioning entity "continued to qualify as a 'new office' as of April 11, 2017." 
We will grant the motion in part, in order to consider this new evidence. Upon consideration, as explained 
below, the new evidence does not warrant approval of the petition. 
The Petitioner states that the Beneficiary's spouse underwent medical treatment between March and July 
2016, and that the Beneficiary "spent a lot of time to take care of her." The Petitioner submits copies of 
bills from health care providers, indicating that the Beneficiary's spouse received unspecified medical 
care on March 9, April 6, May 4, June 1, and July 14, 2016. 
Most importantly, this new evidence does not address or overcome our key determination that "[t]here is 
no provision for providing 'another full year of L-lA eligibility' under the terms of a new office 
petition, with or without extenuating circumstances." Therefore, the new evidence does not, and 
cannot, establish eligibility for the benefit that the Petitioner seeks in this proceeding. 
Furthermore, the new evidence establishes monthly visits to medical offices, but does not show how, or 
to what extent, those visits affected the Petitioner's ability to conduct business. Invoices in the record 
show that the Petitioner provided services shortly before or after several of the above dates in 2016, 
including "Carpet Cleaning" on May 5, "Stripping and waxing floor" on May 29, and a "Ceramic Tile 
Restoration" on July 12, 2016. The Petitioner does not specify who performed those services. If the 
Beneficiary personally cleaned and restored these floors, then he was performing core functions of the 
company rather than overseeing them in a managerial or executive capacity. If others (subordinates or 
contractors) provided those services, then the Petitioner has not explained why the Beneficiary's 
intermittent unavailability would have interfered with others' ability to perform the necessary tasks. 
Furthermore, we note that this new reliance on medical bills stands in contrast to the prior claim that there 
was no "need to show extenuating circumstances." Also, the new evidence is entirely unrelated to the 
Petitioner's original explanation for the delay in starting business operations. In prior filings, the 
Petitioner did not mention medical issues. Instead, the Petitioner asserted that the business could not 
get underway until it had completed "purchasing equipment, securing offices, getting insurance and 
hiring employees." The Beneficiary himself asserted that the company's "initial business plan was to 
provide basic janitorial services to upscale homeowners," but, because of difficulty in attracting new 
customers, "in March 2017, we scrapped the janitorial business and pivoted to developing a natural 
stone floor cleaning/restoration business." The Beneficiary's statement made no mention of medical 
issues delaying the development of the business. 
The motion also includes other, lesser revisions of the Petitioner's claims. For example, the record 
contains several invoices from March and April 2016, describing specific services performed for 
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identified clients, such as"[ o ]ffice carpet floor cleaning" for an import/export company in._l ___ ___. 
Florida. Initially, the Petitioner described these documents as "[i]nvoices to customers." In its motion 
to reconsider, the Petitioner previously described these invoiced activities as "small sporadic cleaning 
jobs." Now, in its motion to reopen, the Petitioner contends for the first time that these activities "were 
no[t] services, but machine tests .... There were a few trial tests, both for equipment, and payment 
methods." This is not simply information that the Petitioner chose not to disclose on four prior 
occasions (the initial filing; the response to a request for evidence; the appeal; and the motion to 
reconsider). Rather, this new claim conflicts with prior descriptions of the same evidence. These 
unresolved discrepancies raise broader questions of credibility. See Matter of Ho, 19 I&N Dec. 582, 
591-92 (BIA 1988). 
In our initial appellate decision, we stated: 
For a given beneficiary working for a given petitioner, the regulations provide for only 
one year of L-1 A status in a new office. New office status is contingent on progress 
towards more folly establishing the business. If, at the end of that year, the new office 
has not made that progress, then this deficiency is grounds for ending the immigration 
benefit, not extending it. 
The Petitioner's inconsistent explanations for the claimed delay in starting its business activity do not 
alter our prior conclusion. 
The new evidence also includes a letter from an elected official in Ohio who engaged the services of 
the petitioning company for his "investment property" in Florida. The individual praises the quality 
of the service provided and states: "Far too many tax payer dollars are being wasted on pursuing hard 
working, law abiding immigrants living in America over mere technicalities." The present case is not 
a matter of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services "pursuing" the Petitioner or the Beneficiary 
"over mere technicalities." The Petitioner chose to initiate this proceeding by requesting a benefit on 
the Beneficiary's behalf, and the burden lies with the Petitioner to show that the Beneficiary meets the 
requirements for that benefit. The writer's opinions do not provide a substantive basis for approving 
the petition. 
III. CONCLUSION 
For the reasons discussed, the Petitioner has not overcome the grounds for dismissal of its appeal or it 
prior motion. The motion to reopen will be dismissed in part for the above stated reasons. The 
petitioner will remain denied. 
ORDER: The motion to reopen is granted in part and dismissed in part. 
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