dismissed L-1A Case: Retail

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: JULY 5, 2024 In Re: 31825207 
Appeal of California Service Center Decision 
Form 1-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker (L-lA Manager or Executive) 
The Petitioner, initially described as a wholesaler but later as a retailer of novelty gifts and souvenirs, 
seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as sales director of its new office under the L-lA 
nonimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees. See 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 California Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish that: (1) the Beneficiary was employed abroad; (2) the Beneficiary's claimed employment 
abroad was in a managerial or executive capacity; and (3) the Petitioner's new office would support a 
managerial or executive position within one year after approval of the new office petition. The matter 
is now before us on appeal under 8 C.F.R. § 103.3. 
The Petitioner bears the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence. 
Matter afChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). We review the questions in this matter 
de novo. Matter a/Christa's, Inc., 26 I&N Dec. 537,537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de novo review, 
we will dismiss the appeal. 
To establish eligibility for the L-lA nonimmigrant visa classification in a petition involving a new 
office, a petitioner must submit evidence that the beneficiary has at least one continuous year of full­
time employment abroad with a qualifying organization within the three years preceding the filing of 
the petition. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(iii) and (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 also 
submit evidence to demonstrate that the new office will be able to support a managerial or executive 
position within one year. See generally 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(v). 
The Director determined that the Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary was employed abroad 
as required . We agree with this determination, for the reasons explained below. 
The Petitioner filed the Form I-129 petition in June 2023. The Petitioner claimed that the Beneficiary 
began working as the sales director for the Petitioner's foreign parent company in January 2021. The 
Petitioner also claimed that the Beneficiary had last entered the United States on June 1, 2022, as a 
B-1 nonimmigrant visitor for business. 
The Director issued a request for evidence (RFE), stating that the Petitioner had not submitted 
"independent, objective documentary evidence of [the Beneficiary's] employment" outside the United 
States. The Director also stated: 
Additionally, our records show the beneficiary last entered the United States with B 1 
status on April 1, 2014 and has not departed. Our records also indicate the beneficiary's 
B 1 status expired on September 20, 2014. Your petition indicates the beneficiary has 
worked abroad ... since January 2021 and last arrived in the United States on June 1, 
2022. However, the record does not show the beneficiary was abroad from January 
2021 to June 1, 2022. 
In response, the Petitioner stated that, after his April 2014 entry into the United States, "the beneficiary 
did leave the U.S. timely ... and continued working for the foreign company.... The beneficiary 
returned to the U.S. on June 1, 2022 with a B2 visa." The Petitioner did not specify when the 
Beneficiary purportedly left the United States. The Petitioner submitted copies of the foreign 
employer's purported payroll documents, dated between January 2021 and January 2022, naming the 
Beneficiary as the sales director. 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the Petitioner had not submitted evidence "to refute 
[government] records showing the beneficiary has been physically present in the United States since 
April 1, 2014." The Director also noted that "the record does not show how [the Beneficiary 
purportedly] obtained a new visa for his claimed arrival on June 1, 2022." The Director acknowledged 
the purported payroll records dated 2021, but the Director stated that these records do not establish 
that the Beneficiary was "physically outside the United States" at the time. 
On appeal, the Petitioner states that the Director "has not presented any supporting documents to 
support the travel history for this beneficiary." While the Director did not identify the specific records 
systems consulted for the Beneficiary's travel history, the Director did provide specific dates and other 
information, and government travel records corroborate the Director's assertions. 
These government travel and visa records originated outside the record of proceeding. When such 
information will be used to make a decision unfavorable to a petitioner, the regulations require the 
Director to advise the petitioner of the information and offer the petitioner an opportunity to present a 
rebuttal. See 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(l6)(i). The Director followed this procedure, issuing an RFE to 
advise the Petitioner of the derogatory information and then considering the Petitioner's response. 1 
It remains that the burden of proof is on the Petitioner to submit evidence to establish eligibility. The 
Petitioner did not submit any evidence to show that the Beneficiary left the United States after his 
April 2014 entry; obtained a B-2 nonimmigrant visa after that date; and re-entered the United States 
1 The Director included additional derogatory information for the first time in the denial notice, which we have not 
considered here because the Petitioner had not received prior notice. 
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in June 2022. Each of these activities would create government records, and the Director duly advised 
the Petitioner that the expected records for these claimed events do not exist. 
One such record would be in the form of a Form I-94 Arrival and Departure Record. The Form I-129 
petition instrncted the Petitioner to provide the Form I-94 number for the Beneficiary's most recent 
entry into the United States, but the Petitioner left that line of the petition form blank without 
explanation. The Petitioner also submitted a partial copy of the Beneficiary's Indian passport, but the 
partial copy does not include any U.S. visa that was valid in 2022 or any pages with entry and exit 
stamps that would document the Beneficiary's international travel. 
We agree with the Director's assertion that salary payments alone are not sufficient evidence of 
employment abroad, because the Beneficiary could have received those payments while in the United 
States. Even then, the Petitioner did not submit financial documentation that would corroborate those 
claimed salary payments from 2021. The Petitioner stated that its initial submission included the 
foreign employer's bank statements showing "transactions from May 2020 - March 2023," but the 
earliest listed transaction is from April 2022, several months after the last claimed salary payment to 
the Beneficiary. The uncorroborated list of claimed salary payments does not outweigh government 
records that indicate the Beneficiary never left the United States after he entered in 2014. 
For the above reasons, we agree with the Director's determination that the Petitioner has not shown 
that the claimed foreign employer employed the Beneficiary outside the United States for at least one 
year. Therefore, the Petitioner has not satisfied this eligibility requirement. 
We will dismiss the appeal, because the Petitioner has not met its burden of proof to establish that the 
Beneficiary was employed abroad full-time for at least one year during the three years preceding the filing 
of the petition. Because this issue determines the outcome of the Petitioner's appeal, we decline to 
reach and hereby reserve the Petitioner's appellate arguments regarding whether the claimed 
employment abroad qualifies as a managerial or executive capacity, and whether the new office would 
support a managerial or executive position within one year after approval of the petition. See INS v. 
Bagamasbad, 429 U.S. 24, 25 (1976) (stating that agencies are not required to make "purely advisory 
findings" on issues that are unnecessary to the ultimate decision); see also Matter ofL-A-C-, 26 I&N 
Dec. 516, 526 n. 7 (BIA 2015) ( declining to reach alternative issues on appeal where an applicant is 
otherwise ineligible). 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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