dismissed L-1A Case: Information Technology Consulting

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re: 16083874 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Form 1-129, Petition for L-lA Manager or Executive 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date : APR. 08, 2021 
The Petitioner, a business information technology consulting firm, seeks to temporarily employ the 
Beneficiary in the United States a program manager 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 Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding the record did not establish 
that the Beneficiary would be employed in a managerial or executive capacity in the United States. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts the Director did not consider that the Beneficiary would qualify as a 
personnel manager in the United States based on his supervision of subordinate supervisors and 
managers and disregarded substantial evidence demonstrating him acting in this qualifying role. 
In these proceedings , it is the Petitioner's burden to establish eligibility for the requested benefit. 
Section 291 of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1361. Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-lA 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(1)(3). 
II. U.S. EMPLOYMENT IN A MANAGERIAL CAPACITY 
The sole issue to be addressed is whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary would be 
employed in a managerial capacity. The Petitioner does not claim on appeal that the Beneficiary 
would be employed in an executive capacity . Therefore, we restrict our analysis to whether the 
Beneficiary would be employed in a managerial capacity. 
"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, we will review the petitioner's 
description of the job duties. The petitioner's description of the job duties must clearly describe the 
duties to be performed by the beneficiary and indicate whether such duties are in a managerial 
capacity. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(ii). 
A. Duties 
To be eligible for the L-lA nonimmigrant visa classification as a manager, the Petitioner must show 
that the Beneficiary will perform the high-level responsibilities set forth in the statutory definition at 
section 101(a)(44)(A)(i)-(iv) of the Act. If the record does not establish that the offered position meets 
all four of these elements, we cannot conclude that it is a qualifying managerial position. 
If the Petitioner establishes that the offered position meets all elements set forth in the statutory 
definition, the Petitioner must prove that the Beneficiary will be primarily engaged in managerial 
duties, as opposed to ordinary operational activities alongside the Petitioner's other employees. See 
Family Inc. v. USCIS, 469 F.3d 1313, 1316 (9th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a given 
beneficiary's duties will be primarily managerial, we consider the Petitioner's description of the job 
duties, the company's organizational structure, the duties of a beneficiary's subordinate employees, 
the presence of other employees to relieve the beneficiary from performing operational duties, the 
nature of the business, and any other factors that will contribute to understanding a beneficiary's actual 
duties and role in a business. 
The Petitioner stated that it is a "global information technology consulting, services, and business 
solutions provider" offering an "integrated portfolio of business, technology and engineering services 
and solutions." The Petitioner indicated that the Beneficiary would be employed as a program 
manager in the United States and that he would "manage a team of professionals to successfully 
execute [the company's] project[s], including "IT Service Management and End User Computing 
Services." The Petitioner submitted the following duty description for the Beneficiary: 
Managing, coordinating, planning and ensure smooth execution of program in 
line with business requirements - 10% 
• Understand the strategic initiatives for the Program 
• Resourcing requirements for strategic imperatives based on new business 
requirements 
• Assist team in planning & prioritization of projects on paper 
• Planning and forecasting for new strategic project development initiatives 
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• Participate in Management Action Planning 
Project Request Intake including contract process - 10% 
• Conduct requirement review meetings with client for new scope of work and/or 
changes to existing scope 
• Prepare project intake and delivery of dashboards 
• Review new intake requests with customer leadership and obtain approvals 
• Resource planning and assignment for new intake requests 
Identifying the priorities in consultation with Clients and changing the schedule 
accordingly - 10% 
• Communicate program strategy, timelines from customer prospective 
• Communicate program objectives and expectations and scope for delivery 
• Attend Senior Leadership Steering committee meetings to demonstrate the thought 
leadership Ideas & Vision 
• Attend weekly and monthly meetings, steering committee meetings, quarterly 
review meetings with Release VPs and Directors and based on that prioritize 
delivery of projects, activities 
Defining the responsibilities and reviewing and deliverables, assigning work from 
functional & technical perspectives - 10% 
• Provide guidance on resource allocation based on technology requirements 
• Review program/projects through project management reviews and risk mitigation 
plan 
• Manage technology alliance relationship by identifying, communicating 
technology acquisition needs to leadership 
• Based on the categorization of the asset and priority, set up clear roles and 
responsibilities and escalation mechanism 
Review Cost Estimations - 5% 
• Participate in Project/Program initiative planning & Resource forecasting 
• Review high level cost estimation to gain concept funding 
• Ensure program/project funding approval for new initiatives 
• Participate in resource occupancy & capability reviews 
• Communicate resource planning to program leadership 
Conducting daily/weekly/monthly status meetings with client stakeholders and 
[company] leadership. Reporting status to the client-15% 
• Gather stakeholder communication requirements, person responsible for 
communication 
• Met with the client leadership to review the critical incidents impacting business, 
design and develop processes required to enable smooth running of service 
restoration activities 
• Review the root cause and identified permanent fix for major incidents/outages 
along with client leadership and help with necessary arrangement for technical 
teams to move the permanent fix to production 
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• Review the performance of service request management & service desk processes 
& deliverables 
• Report status to Integration program leaders on the program status 
• Review the target deliverables & challenges with Release director & respective 
work stream lead on a weekly basis 
Assigning Tasks and Monitoring their status - 10% 
• Identifying the technical and functional needs of the projects as per detailed project 
plan and assigning work to appropriate resource based on their experience & 
competency in the areas 
• Monitoring the project progress against the defined project plan 
• Identifying any potential effort/schedule slippage and identifying/assigning 
resources to tasks 
Establishing & Monitoring the processes for Issue Management, Change 
Management and Quality Management - 10% 
• Track and monitor issues in the issue tracker 
• Log the changes into the IPMS and Primavera all other quality related tasks 
• Collecting and reporting daily metrics 
• Identify priority of changes in the order of importance and size by discussing with 
customer 
• Assess the change and approve/disapprove the changes and communicate to 
stakeholders with reasons 
Risk Management - 10% 
• Identify project risk and update risk register 
• Determine reasons for deviations from the plan & initiate the implementation of 
corrective actions 
• Perform analysis to quantify risk impact 
• Communicate to client, stakeholders and [company] Management 
Team Management - 10% 
• Carry out regular feedback sessions with subordinates 
• Review associate performance on a half yearly basis 
• Prepare "Performance Report Card" for all associates 
• Discuss career planning & training needs 
• Groom project team on management communication 
The Petitioner submitted a duty description for the Beneficiary that does not sufficiently establish that 
he would primarily devote his time to managerial-level duties as opposed to non-qualifying operational 
tasks related to the direct provision of goods and services to clients. For instance, there are several 
duties listed in the Beneficiary's duty description that suggest his direct provision of services to clients 
or his performance of operational or administrative tasks, such as him conducting requirements 
meetings with clients to determine new scopes of work and him preparing intake and delivery 
dashboards following these meetings. Likewise, several of the Beneficiary's duties indicate that he 
would act in a role focused more on acting as a liaison between the client and the Petitioner, rather 
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than him acting primarily in a managerial role. These duties included the Beneficiary communicating 
timelines or program objectives from the customer to the Petitioner, meeting with the client to report 
incidents, or him designing and developing solutions for his clients. 
Further, a number of the Beneficiary's duties suggest his engagement in tracking and data collection 
tasks, including him communicating resource planning and program status to "program leadership," 
tracking and monitoring issues in the "issue tracker," logging changes into "IMPS," "collecting and 
reporting quality metrics, "identify[ing] project risks and updat[ing] [the] risk register," among others. 
In other words, although the Beneficiary's duty description included some apparent managerial-level 
tasks, these qualifying duties appear to represent the minority, while the majority appear to involve 
coordination with customers, communication of requirements, provision of solutions, tracking, and 
communication of these activities to Petitioner management. In sum, the Beneficiary's duty 
description is more indicative of an employee primarily engaged in ordinary operational activities 
alongside the Petitioner's other employees rather than a position where he is primarily supervising and 
delegating to supervisory and professional subordinates as claimed. 
Whether the Beneficiary is a managerial employee turns on whether the Petitioner has sustained its 
burden of proving that their duties are "primarily" managerial. See sections 10l(a)(44)(A) of the Act. 
Here, the Petitioner does not sufficiently document what proportion of the Beneficiary's duties would 
be managerial functions and what proportion would be non-qualifying. The Petitioner lists the 
Beneficiary's duties as including both managerial tasks and administrative or operational tasks, but it 
does not sufficiently quantify the time he would spend on these different duties. For this reason, we 
cannot determine whether the Beneficiary would primarily perform the duties of a manager. See IKEA 
US, Inc. v. US. Dept. of Justice, 48 F. Supp. 2d 22, 24 (D.D.C. 1999). 
Even though the Beneficiary holds a position with a managerial title within the organization, the fact 
that he will manage or direct a portion of the business does not necessarily establish eligibility for 
classification as an intracompany transferee in a managerial capacity within the meaning of section 
10l(a)(44)(A) of the Act. By statute, eligibility for this classification requires that the duties of a 
position be "primarily" managerial in nature. Id. The Beneficiary may exercise discretion over some 
of the Petitioner's day-to-day operations and possess some requisite level of authority with respect to 
discretionary decision-making; however, the position descriptions alone are insufficient to establish 
that her actual duties would be 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, we take into account the reasonable needs of the organization, in light of the overall purpose 
and stage of development of the organization. See section 101 (a)( 44 )( C) of the Act. 
On appeal, the Petitioner emphasizes that the Beneficiary would qualify as a personnel manager based 
on his oversight of subordinate supervisors. The statutory definition of "managerial capacity" allows 
for both "personnel managers" and "function managers." See section 10l(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 
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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(1)(l)(ii)(B)(3). Since the Petitioner only contends that the 
Beneficiary qualifies as a personnel manager on appeal, we will not analyze whether he qualifies as a 
function manager. 
In support of the petition the Petitioner provided an organizational chart reflecting that the Beneficiary 
would supervise a system administrator, a process expert, a "Tower Lead- Service Desk," and a service 
request manager. The chart further indicated that the tower lead subordinate would oversee 14 support 
executives and an information processing specialist. 
Upon review, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence to establish that the Beneficiary 
would qualify as a personnel manager based on his supervision of subordinate supervisors as 
emphasized on appeal. First, the Beneficiary's duty description discusses him completing 
performance reviews for "associates," not the claimed tower leader listed in the asserted organizational 
chart, his only asserted subordinate supervisor. Similarly, the Beneficiary's duty description is not 
indicative of his oversight of a multilayered organization but reflects his daily involvement in most of 
the operational aspects required to provide services to clients rather his primary delegation of non­
qualifying tasks to subordinate supervisors. In fact, the mention of "associates" in the "people 
management" section of his duties indicates his likely direct coordination of his colleagues as a first­
line supervisor rather than a manager of subordinate supervisors. Further, the duties of the 
Beneficiary's only asserted subordinate supervisor are generic and they do not sufficiently 
demonstrate his supervisory authority, only stating a general responsibility for managing the service 
desk, "service desk service level agreements," and "evaluating [its] performance." The duty 
description for the Beneficiary's lone asserted supervisor was not sufficiently detailed to substantiate 
that this role would be one with supervisory or management authority. 
In addition, the Petitioner also provided pay stubs for the Beneficiary's claimed subordinates, 
including his only subordinate supervisor, the mentioned "tower lead." However, the submitted pay 
stubs for the Beneficiary's subordinates each indicated that would each earn more than the 
Beneficiary's proposed $82,000 annual salary. For instance, the pay stubs for the subordinate tower 
lead, the Beneficiary's only claimed subordinate supervisor, reflected this employee earned nearly 
$94,000 annually, leaving question as to whether the Beneficiary would have personnel authority over 
him. Likewise, other provided paystubs showed that the subordinate system administrator was paid 
approximately $89,000 per year, the process expert nearly $90,000, and the service request manager 
around $84,000. 1 The fact that the each of the Beneficiary's subordinates would earn more than him 
leaves substantial uncertainty as to whether he would act in a senior managerial role in relation to 
them. 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). 
1 The annual salaries of the Beneficiary's subordinates were calculated by multiplying their bi-weekly paychecks by 26 bi­
weekly periods in one year and properly rounded. The bi-weekly salaries of each of the Beneficiary's subordinates were 
consistent in each of their provided pay stubs. 
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In the alternative, the Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated that the Beneficiary would qualify 
as a personnel manager through his supervision of professional subordinates. To determine whether 
a beneficiary manages professional employees, we must evaluate whether the subordinate positions 
require a baccalaureate degree as a minimum for entry into the field of endeavor. Cf 8 C.F.R. § 
204.5(k)(2) (defining "profession" to mean "any occupation for which a U.S. baccalaureate degree or 
its foreign equivalent is the minimum requirement for entry into the occupation"). Section 10l(a)(32) 
of the Act, states that "[ t ]he term profession shall include but not be limited to architects, engineers, 
lawyers, physicians, surgeons, and teachers in elementary or secondary schools, colleges, academies, 
or seminaries." Therefore, we must focus on the level of education required by the position, rather 
than the degree held by subordinate employee. The possession of a bachelor's degree by a subordinate 
employee does not automatically lead to the conclusion that an employee is employed in a professional 
capacity. 
First, as discussed above, the Petitioner provided supporting evidence indicating that the Beneficiary's 
asserted subordinates would earn more than him, leaving question as to whether he would have 
personnel authority over them. This evidence, along with the Beneficiary's apparent operational tasks 
and the generic duty descriptions for his subordinates, suggest that they would more likely be 
colleagues managing client projects as a team. Further, although the Petitioner listed the claimed 
educations of the Beneficiary's subordinates, it provides no supporting documentation to substantiate 
that they hold bachelor's degrees nor does it describe in detail why each of these individual positions 
should be considered a professional as defined by the regulations. As discussed by the Director, the 
Petitioner provided only a generic 2012 2 expert letter specifically related to the H-1 B nonimmigrant 
visa category vaguely declaring that 22 positions within its organization require a bachelor's degree. 
However, there is little supporting evidence to substantiate this conclusion and this letter has little 
probative value in demonstrating that the specific positions below the Beneficiary qualify as 
professional positions as defined by the regulations. As such, the Petitioner has not sufficiently 
demonstrated that the Beneficiary would qualify as a personnel manager based on his supervision of 
subordinate professionals. 
For the foregoing reasons, the Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary would act in a 
managerial capacity under an approved petition. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
2 The petition was filed in March 2020. 
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