dismissed L-1A Case: Information Technology

Non-Prec
edent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
In Re:  16423399 Date:  APR. 28, 2021 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form I-129, Petition for L-1A Manager or Executive 
Th
e Petitioner, describing itself as a provider of information tech nology consulting and back office 
ser
vices, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary in the United States as a senior analytics manager 
under the L-1A n onimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees.  Immigration and Nationality 
Act
 (the Act) section 101(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S .C. § 1101(a)(15)(L).   
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding the record did not establish 
that the Beneficiary was employed in a managerial or  executive capacity abroad.  O n appeal, the 
Petitioner asserts that support letters submitted by foreign employer executives demonstrate that 
the Beneficiary holds personnel authority over professional subordinates abroad.   
I
n these proceedings, it is the Petitioner’s burden to establish eligibilit y for the requested benefit.  
Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361.  Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal.   
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK
To establish eligibility for the L-1A nonimmigrant visa classification, a qualifying organization must 
have
 employed the beneficiary “in a capacity that is managerial, executive, or involves specialized 
knowledge,” for one continuous year within three years preceding the beneficiary’s application for 
admission into the United States.  Section 101(a)(15)(L) of the Act.  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 also establish that the beneficiary’s prior education, training, and employment qualify him or her 
to perform the intended services in the United States.  8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(3). 
II. FOREIGN EMPLOYMENT IN A MANAGERIAL CAPACITY
The sole issue to be addressed is whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary was employed 
in a managerial capacity abroad.  The Petitioner does not claim that the Beneficiary was employed in 
an executive capacity abroad.  Therefore, we restrict our analysis to whether the Beneficiary was 
em
ployed in a managerial capacity. 
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
"Managerial capacity" means an assignment within an organization in which the employee primarily 
manages the organization, or a department, subdivision, function, or component of the organization; 
supervises and controls the work of other supervisory, professional, or managerial employees, or 
manages an essential function within the organization, or a department or subdivision of the 
organization; has authority over personnel actions or functions at a senior level within the 
organizational hierarchy or with respect to the function managed; and exercises discretion over the 
day-to-day operations of the activity or function for which the employee has authority. Section 
10l(a)(44)(A) of the Act. 
When examining the managerial capacity of a given beneficiary abroad, we will review the petitioner's 
description of the foreign job duties. The petitioner's description of the foreign job duties must clearly 
describe the duties performed by the beneficiary abroad and indicate whether such duties were in a 
managerial capacity. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(ii). 
A. Duties 
To be eligible for L-lA nonimmigrant visa classification as a manager, the Petitioner must show that 
the Beneficiary performed the high-level responsibilities set forth in the statutory definition at section 
10l(a)(44)(A)(i)-(iv) of the Act in his or her position abroad. If the record does not establish that the 
foreign position meets all four of these elements, we cannot conclude that it was a qualifying 
managerial position. 
If the Petitioner establishes that the foreign position meets all elements set forth in the statutory 
definition, it must prove that the Beneficiary was primarily engaged in managerial duties, as opposed 
to ordinary operational activities alongside other foreign employees. See Family Inc. v. USCIS, 469 
F.3d 1313, 1316 (9th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a given beneficiary's foreign duties were 
primarily managerial, we consider the Petitioner's description of the foreign job duties, the foreign 
company's organizational structure, the duties of a beneficiary's subordinate employees abroad, the 
presence of other employees to relieve the beneficiary from performing operational duties, the nature 
of the foreign business, and any other factors that will contribute to understanding a beneficiary's 
actual duties and role in a business abroad. 
The Petitioner stated that it and the Beneficiary's foreign employer are information technology 
consulting companies providing "technology and business transformation services to small, medium 
and large enterprises in the US and India," including "integrated business management software 
solutions." The Petitioner indicated that the Beneficiary had been employed abroad since May 2016 1 
as an "SAP Analytics Manager" and noted that he "takes the lead role on managing Business 
Intelligence and ERP implementation," including managing "his team to work with Project Managers 
in putting together detailed project plans." The Petitioner submitted the following duty description 
for the Beneficiary's position abroad including percentages of time he devoted to each task monthly: 
• Mentor and develop the Analytics team; Assign and monitor daily/weekly 
deliverables and with the team project members - 10% 
1 The petition was filed in March 2019. 
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• Define Project Standards, Development of Architecture, Review of Design, 
Analysis of project schedules, Team Management, ensuring optimum utilization of 
analytics resources and complete delivery within budget - 20% 
• Define Project Standards, Development of Architecture, Review of Design, 
Analysis of project schedules, Team Management, ensuring optimum utilization of 
analytics resources and complete delivery within budget - 30% 
• Assist with functional requirements using system analysis techniques and methods 
-10% 
• Review and validate deliverables with appropriate business and technology 
stakeholders - 20% 
• Develop training materials and content - 5-10% 
• Quality/Workflow compliance - Ensure service levels are clearly communicated, 
understood, and performed by on-site and remote staff - 5-10% 
• Analytics Resource Coordination and management in the US and India, Coaching 
& counseling - Provide timely verbal and written feedback to team members; 
address performance issues, plan for employee growth and development - 5-10% 
• Personnel Management - Perform all functions including time and payroll 
authorizations, training approval and vacation approval. Duties also include hiring 
and termination, performance reviews and promotions - 5-10% 
Later in response to the Director's request for evidence (RFE), the Petitioner submitted a letter from 
the foreign employer briefly laying out the Beneficiary's responsibilities, emphasizing that he was 
tasked with "managing and participating in SAP Business All In One implementations" and 
"developing and evaluating plans and criteria to be carried out by others." The Petitioner farther 
indicating that the Beneficiary was responsible for "facilitating the implementation and support of 
SAP modules ... while maintaining a high degree of customer satisfaction" and "providing functional 
expertise, guidance, presentation, and instruction on SAP products to clients and project team 
members." The Petitioner also asserted that the Beneficiary held personnel authority over professional 
subordinates working on these projects, including the "authority to carry out ... hiring and firing of 
staff: scheduling hours and vacations." However, the Petitioner noted that these personnel tasks were 
formally passed to its human resources to "attend to," but noted that the Beneficiary held authority 
over the "make up composition of [his] team on a project and the delegation of specific work to be 
done by each member." 
Furthermore, the Petitioner also provided the Beneficiary's performance review from October 2018 
including an apparent breakdown of his duties listed as "KRAs" with "weightage" assigned to each 
task. However, this list of the Beneficiary's responsibilities abroad appeared to be fundamentally 
different than his claimed duty descriptions, appearing to include mostly non-qualifying operational 
level tasks. Further, there was little indication that the Beneficiary was tasked with personnel authority 
over professionals and that he was primarily delegating operational tasks to claimed subordinates. For 
instance, this breakdown of the Beneficiary's duties reflected that he devoted 40% of his time to 
"understanding the project scope requirements based on team discussion, recording and notes prepared 
bvl t' This duty category also involved the Beneficiary preparing the 
"General Business Blue print" and "Finance A/P and G/I" documents, as well as discussing these 
documents with I t and "conducting daily calls with.__ _____ _. to work open 
deliverables." Further, another portion of the Beneficiary's performance review discussed him 
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"working with senior experts like.__ _____________ ___.ha[s] be[en] a dynamic 
motivation in my career." It is notable that this breakdown of the Beneficiary's tasks within his 
performance review completed near to the date the petition was filed appears to include little indication 
that the Beneficiary oversaw a team of professionals and that he held personnel authority over these 
subordinates. In fact, this breakdown of the Beneficiary's tasks from the performance review appears 
to reflect his performance of a wide range of non-qualifying operational duties and his close 
coordination daily with senior information technology "experts" rather than his claimed subordinates. 
These duties also discussed other apparent service related duties, such as the Beneficiary's collection 
of scope requirements, preparation of project documents, and coordination with senior experts on 
"server and client configuration[s] and installations required along with user login vpn support." 
In addition, the duty description included in the Beneficiary's performance review further indicated 
that the Beneficiary devoted another 30% of his time to "SAP Business One I I on Cloud 
Implementation for I . I' "understanding the project requirements based on team 
discussions, recording and notes," and "preparation of Business Blue Print Document fo~ I 
Implementation." It also noted the Beneficiary's coordination with the "new Cloud Partner," 
I I' and the I I Support team," as well as him "conducting daily calls withl I to 
work on open deliverables." Again, the Beneficiary's performance review duty description lists 
several non-qualifying operational duties related directly to the provision of services. Further, this 
portion of the performance review description includes no mention of the Beneficiary's delegation of 
duties to subordinates and the mentioned I f is not one of his claimed team members. 
Similarly, the remaining 30% of the Beneficiary's performance review duties appeared exclusively 
devoted to operational level duties, such as him being res1onsible for "customiz~ting, 
documentation, scope documents and su1port" 1e1ated to I' and L__J and 
"configuration and preparation for SAP One demo[s]" for clients." There was no mention of 
the Beneficiary's delegation of these non-qualifying operational level duties to professional 
subordinates as claimed. 
Therefore, the Petitioner submitted two materially conflicting duty descriptions on the record, one in 
support letters emphasizing the Beneficiary's assignment of tasks to subordinates, "team 
management," as well as other personnel management related duties, and another in his performance 
review showing nearly all non-qualifying operational-level tasks and no apparent managerial 
responsibility. The material discrepancies between these two duty descriptions leaves substantial 
uncertainty as to whether the Beneficiary primarily performed qualifying managerial duties abroad. 
The Petitioner must resolve discrepancies in the record with independent, objective evidence pointing 
to where the truth lies. Matter of Ho, 19 I&N Dec. 582, 591-92 (BIA 1988). 
Whether the Beneficiary is a managerial employee abroad turns on whether the Petitioner has sustained 
its burden of proving that their duties were "primarily" managerial. See sections 101(a)(44)(A) of the 
Act. Here, the Petitioner does not sufficiently document what proportion of the Beneficiary's foreign 
duties were managerial functions and what proportion would be non-qualifying. The Petitioner 
submits evidence reflecting the Beneficiary's performance ofboth managerial tasks and administrative 
or operational tasks but it does not quantify time he spent on each. For this reason, we cannot 
determine whether the Beneficiary primarily performed the duties of a manager abroad. See IKEA 
US, Inc. v. US. Dept. of Justice, 48 F. Supp. 2d 22, 24 (D.D.C. 1999). 
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Even though the Beneficiary manages or directs a portion of the foreign business does not necessarily 
establish eligibility for classification as an intracompany transferee in a managerial capacity within 
the meaning of section 101(a)(44)(A) of the Act. By statute, eligibility for this classification requires 
that the duties of a foreign position be "primarily" managerial in nature. Id. The Beneficiary may 
exercise discretion over a portion of the foreign employer's day-to-day operations and possess the 
requisite level of authority with respect to discretionary decision-making; however, the foreign 
position descriptions alone are insufficient to establish that his actual duties were primarily managerial 
in nature. 
B. Staffing 
If staffing levels are used as a factor in determining whether an individual is acting in a managerial 
capacity abroad, we take into account the reasonable needs of the organization, in light of the overall 
purpose and stage of development. See section 101 (a)( 44 )( C) of the Act. 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary oversaw five professional subordinates, including a "CRM 
solution consultant," a "CRM architect," a "senior business analyst," a "senior SAP B 1 consultant," 
and a "senior functional/technical consultant." The statutory definition of "managerial capacity" 
allows for both "personnel managers" and "function managers." See section 101(a)(44)(A) of the Act. 
Personnel managers are required to primarily supervise and control the work of other supervisory, 
professional, or managerial employees. Contrary to the common understanding of the word 
"manager," the statute plainly states that a "first line supervisor is not considered to be acting in a 
managerial capacity merely by virtue of the supervisor's supervisory duties unless the employees 
supervised are professional." Id. If a beneficiary directly supervises other employees, the beneficiary 
must also have the authority to hire and fire those employees, or recommend those actions, and take 
other personnel actions. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(B)(3). Since the Petitioner does not contend on 
appeal that the Beneficiary qualifies as a personnel manager of subordinate supervisors or managers 
or as a function manager, we will only analyze whether it has established that he qualifies based on 
his claimed personnel authority over subordinate professionals abroad. 
In the request for evidence (RFE), the Director pointed to an assertion of the Petitioner reading as 
follows: 
[The Beneficiary] has had the authority to assign the personnel under him, to set their 
assignments, schedules and vacation time. He also had authority in hiring, promotions 
and terminations, although these are pursued through channel with our Human 
Resources department. 
The Director stated in the RFE that the Petitioner did not submit sufficient evidence of the 
Beneficiary's asserted personnel authority asserted in this statement. In response to the RFE, the 
Petitioner again reiterated the above assertion, generically indicating that his personnel authority was 
routed through human resources. In denying the petition, the Director once again emphasized that the 
Petitioner did not sufficiently substantiate with supporting evidence the Beneficiary's personnel 
authority over professionals. On appeal the Petitioner contends that a letter from the company's 
director of corporate affairs, including the above statement, is sufficient to establish the Beneficiary's 
5 
personnel authority over his subordinates. The Petitioner states that this statement is "dispositive of 
the issue" and that the Beneficiary exercising personnel authority through the human resources 
department is "standard business practice." 
Although we agree that it would be relatively common for a manager to exercise their personnel 
authority through a human resources department, this assertion on appeal does not address the material 
issue at hand in this matter. The Petitioner, beyond its own assertions, provides no supporting 
documentation to substantiate the Beneficiary's personnel authority over his claimed foreign 
subordinates, his oversight of them, or his assignment of non-qualifying operational duties to them. 
The Petitioner provides no additional evidence on appeal to rectify this material evidentiary 
deficiency, despite being reminded of this issue in the RFE and in the denial decision. 
In fact, as discussed, the Petitioner provided an annual performance review for the Beneficiary 
reflecting his apparent engagement in a wide range of non-qualifying operational-level tasks. Further, 
the Beneficiary's performance review does not clearly reflect that the Beneficiary had formal 
subordinates over whom he exercised personnel authority. Indeed, the fact that the Petitioner has 
provided the Beneficiary's performance review leaves question as to why it has also not submitted the 
performance reviews of his claimed professional subordinates, whether these reviews were processed 
through the company's human resources or not. Again, the Petitioner must resolve inconsistencies 
and ambiguities in the record with independent, objective evidence pointing to where the truth lies. 
Matter of Ho, 19 I&N Dec. 582, 591-92 (BIA 1988). It is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility 
for the immigration benefit sought. Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361; Matter of Skirball 
Cultural Ctr., 25 I&N Dec. 799, 806 (AAO 2012). In sum, the Petitioner has not submitted sufficient 
evidence and supporting documentation to substantiate that the Beneficiary acted as a personnel 
manager abroad with personnel authority over subordinate professionals. 
The Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary was employed in a managerial capacity abroad. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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