dismissed L-1A Case: Telecommunications

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF S-I-, INC. 
APPEAL OF VERMONT SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: NOV.29,2017 
PETITION: FORM I-129, PETITION FOR A NONIMMIGRANT WORKER 
The Petitioner, a telecommunications service provider, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as 
a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoiP) manager under the L-1 A nonimmigrant classification for 
intracompany transferees. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) section 101(a)(15)(L), 
8 U.S.C. § 110l(a)(l5)(L). The L-IA 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 denied the petition. concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that the Petitioner will employ the Beneficiary in the United States in a 
managerial or executive capacity. 
The matter is now before us on appeal. On appeal, the Petitioner states that it had previously 
provided ample details of the Beneficiary's work, and that the Director erred by not considering 
those details. The Petitioner also submits additional evidence regarding the technical nature of the 
VoiP function and the qualifications ofthe company's service engineers. 
Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-1 A 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 I 01 (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. !d. 
II. EMPLOYMENT IN A MANAGERIAL OR EXECUTIVE CAPACITY 
The Director found that the Petitioner did not establish that it will employ the Beneficiary in a 
managerial or executive capacity. The Petitioner does not claim that the Beneficiary will be 
Matter ofS-1-, Inc. 
employed in an executive capacity: therefore, we restrict our analysis to whether the Beneficiary will 
be employed in a managerial capacity. 
A managerial capacity is an assignment within an organization in which the employee primarily 
manages the organization, or a department subdivision, function. or component of the organization. 
and exercises discretion over the day-to-day operations of the activity or function for which the 
employee has authority. The statutory definition of ''managerial capacity" allows for both 
"personnel managers" and "function managers."' See sections 101(a)(44)(A)(i) and (ii) of the Act. 
Personnel managers are required to primarily supervise and control the work of other supervisory. 
professional, or managerial employees. A personnel manager supervises and controls the work of 
other supervisory, professional, or managerial employees: the duties of a first-linc·supervisor are not 
considered managerial unless the employees supervised are professional. A personnel manager must 
also have the authority to execute or recommend personnel actions such as hiring. tiring. and 
promotions. A function manager need not directly supervise other employees, but must manage an 
essential function within the organization. or a department or subdivision of the organization. and 
function at a senior level within the organizational hierarchy or with respect to the function 
managed. Section 101(a)(44)(A) ofthe Act. 
When examining the managerial or executive capacity of the Beneficiary. we will review the 
Petitioner's description of the Beneficiary's 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 or executive capacity. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3 )(ii). 
The definitions of managerial and executive capacity each have two parts. First. the Petitioner must 
show that the Beneficiary will perform certain high-level responsibilities. Champion World. Inc. r. 
INS. 940 F.2d 1533 (9th Cir. 1991) (unpublished table decision). Second. the Petitioner must prove 
that the Beneficiary will be primarily engaged in managerial or executive duties. as opposed to 
ordinary operational activities alongside the Petitioner's other employees. See Family Inc. 1'. USC 'IS'. 
469 F.3d 1313, 1316 (9th Cir. 2006); Champion World, 940 F.2d 1533. 
Beyond the required description of the job duties, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 
reviews the totality of the record when examining the claimed managerial or executive capacity of a 
beneficiary, including the company's organizational structure, the duties of a beneficiary's 
subordinate employees, the presence of other employees to relieve a 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. 
In this matter, the Petitioner does not claim that the Beneficiary will be a personnel manager: 
therefore, we will analyze whether the Petitioner has established that the Beneficiary will be a 
function manager. 
The term "function manager" applies generally when a beneficiary does not supervise or control the 
work of a subordinate staff but instead is primarily responsible for managing an "essential function'' 
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Matter ofS-1-, Inc. 
within the organization. See section 101(a)(44)(A)(ii) of the Act. If a petitioner claims that a 
beneficiary will manage an essential function, it must clearly describe the duties to be performed in 
managing the essential function. In addition, the petitioner must demonstrate that: 
(1) the function is a clearly defined activity: (2) the function is ··essential," i.e., core 
to the organization: (3) the beneficiary will primarily manage. as opposed to perform. 
the function: ( 4) the beneficiary will act at a senior level within the organizational 
hierarchy or with respect to the function managed: and (5) the beneficiary will 
exercise discretion over the function's day-to-day operations. 
Matter of G- Inc., Adopted Decision 2017-05 (AAO Nov. 8. 2017). Here. the Petitioner has 
identified an essential function but has not established that the Beneficiary will manage, rather than 
perform, that function. 
The Petitioner indicated that its VolP systems engineers are stationed at its foreign affiliate in 
Lebanon, and that the company seeks to transfer some ofthese functions to employees in the United 
States. The Petitioner specified that the Beneficiary ·'will not be directly managing specific 
employees." Rather, the Petitioner employs systems engineers in various zones, and the Beneficiary 
would be responsible for overseeing the work of those engineers with respect to the Petitioner's 
VoiP function; he would not control their other work. 
The Petitioner submitted technical materials explaining the nature of the VoiP function and its 
importance to the company. Its essential nature is not in dispute in this proceeding. Rather, the key 
issue is whether the Beneficiary will primarily manage, rather than perform, the essential function. 
The Petitioner has described the Beneficiary's intended work in two different ways. First. the 
Petitioner broke down the Beneficiary's general responsibilities regarding the VoiP function: 
Managing the Department- 70% of the job is to run and manage the department. 
[The Beneficiary] will conduct 2hr weekly meetings with his VoiP team to go over 
the service at every customer location and recommend necessary upgrades and 
expansions. Discuss the status of the projects and provide technical expertise 
regarding telecommunications problems. 
Will meet and update the IT Director to provide assessment about his team's 
performance at the job and at handling the tasks related to the onsite service and 
projects. 
Will provide assistance and support to the team during critical outages. 
Supervising and Controlling - 30% of the job is to supervise the work of the 
engineers. 
, 
Matter ofS-1-, Inc. 
Like every manager checking his engineers' daily work, notes and time entry, fthe 
Beneficiary] will review and track engineers' notes and time slips related to VoiP 
support, and make sure the work accomplished meets the guidelines and 
configuration of phones and network hardware. 
Will proactively take advantage of external resources for training opportunities and 
provide cross training to other team members. 
[The Beneficiary] will be conducting interviews on a daily basis to build his VoiP 
Team, and will hire the best candidates for the job. Until his team is built [the 
Beneficiary] will be training some of our Systems Engineers with a V oiP experience. 
to assist with the projects and supporting clients on their daily issues. Once his team 
is built [the Beneficiary] will be conducting onsite training for all the candidates, 
introducing them to the installed system. make sure to meet all the rules. regulation[ s] 
and procedures and introducing them to the clients they will be supporting daily. 
Authority 
[The Beneficiary] will report to the IT Director. He will submit monthly reports that 
will contain performance evaluation of the engineers in regards to the V oiP support 
and their ability to resolve issues and work on projects. In addition, he will make 
recommendations whether individual engineers have adequate qualifications for the 
job or should be reassigned. 
The Petitioner stated that "70% of the [Beneficiary's] job is to run and manage the department" but 
the associated tasks (meetings and "provid[ing] assistance and support ... during critical outages" 
do not appear to account for the majority of the Beneficiary's time. The Beneficiary's supervisory 
responsibilities include training workers, which we will discuss in greater detail below. 
In addition to the broad responsibilities discussed above, the Petitioner initially provided a lengthy 
description of the Beneficiary's intended position. Asked for more details. the Petitioner submitted 
essentially the same list, reorganized and showing the approximate time devoted to each category. 
with staffing-related details added in italicized subsections (note: capitalization has not been 
changed): 
MANAGEMENT SKILLS RELATED TO FUNCTION SUPERVISION 50% 
• Leading and participating in the engineering, configuration, installation, 
maintenance and upgrade of the customers' Voice over IP (VoiP) deployment 
supporting applications and network hardware: receive and address error 
escalations of VoiP network through the ticket system, troubleshoot issues in a 
timely and accurate manner. 
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Matter ofS-1-, Inc. 
o With the support of the [fi.Jreign affiliate 'sf Vo!P Managers and their team of' 
Vo!P Systems Engineers[.] U.S. Zone Managers and U.S. Technicians. the 
[Petitioner·.\] U.S. Vo!P Manager will he the lead on all technical issues. In 
eff'ect. the [Petitioner 'sj U.S. Vo!P Manager will become the.fimctionalleader 
over the Vo!P Unit in the U.S. 
• Supervise the on-call rotation for Tier 2 support of the Enterprise Vo!P Network 
Infrastructure. 
o ... [The Beneficiary} will not he directly managing specific employees. But 
rather. he will he managing the Vo!P function ... [and} will work with the 
[foreign} Vo!P managers and their team of Vo!P Systems Engineers. U.S. 
Zone Managers and the US. Technicians ·which are managed hy the US Zone 
Managers. 
• Responsible for training, performance management of the technical team 
o ... Our Vo!P Unit abroad is limited to .J indh·iduals and as we serve more 
customers we must ensure that the U.S. Technicians are gelling the proper 
training to provide the service our customers require. Having Vo/P 
leadership in the ground is imperative. 
DIRECTING DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS OF VoiP and SIP 
INFRASTRUCTURE25% 
• Implementing, supporting and managing the VOIP and SIP infrastructure along 
with the telephony systems for key clients. 
• Manage on-going relationships with vendors and key clients in support of the 
VOIP infrastructure. 
• Pre-site inspection and reporting, onsite supervision and execution of installation 
plan, testing and managing customer sign otl 
• Manage VoiP issues using a variety of analyzers, i.e. SlPMon. BiCom. 
• Manage the analysis of RTP media streams. 
• Manage VoiP services using SIP protocol. 
• Monitor the support of Vo!P solutions for an enterprise network with hosted 
BiCom PBX. 
• Supervise and lead in migration from traditional TDM voice services to carrier 
based IP Voice services. 
o As the functional manager, the Vo/P Manager will he the anchor on the 
ground to ensure that the Vo/P Unit in Lebanon understands the technical 
issues ... in the US . ... 
OVERSEEING FAILURE TROUBLESHOOTING PROTOCOLS AND 
PROCEDURES 15% 
• Maintain policies, procedures and associated training plans for network 
administration, usage and disaster recovery. 
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Matter qfS-1-, Inc. 
• Assist the sales team as a technical resource when VOIP demonstrations are 
needed and/or site assessments. 
• Oversee the building of system health monitors across our environment using 
SIPmon and other similar utilities and respond to any alerts from the system. 
• Oversee the system administration functions for the credit union's LAN/WAN & 
VoiP infrastructures. including the maintenance of network functionality and the 
installation, upgrade, integration and troubleshooting of network software and 
network devices. 
• Ability to take ownership of VoiP failure Incidents and identify problem trends to 
improve the overall dependability of the environment. 
o ... The U.S. Vo!P Manager will take the lead and oversee thai [lhel Vo!P 
Unit is responding to the ever changing needs ofour clients. 
CLIENT/VENDOR RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT I 0% 
• Attend project kickoff meetings with clients. 
• Discuss status of the projects and deliverables with managers and clients. 
o ... [O}ur company will henefitfrom the ability to show our technical 
know-how to both clients and vendors which is hound to benefit our 
bottom line. 
Apart from the organization and addition of some details, the new job description is mostly the same 
as the first version except that the Petitioner changed "[b ]uild system health monitors" to "[ o ]versee 
the building of system health monitors.'· and .. [p ]erform system administration functions·· to 
"[o]versee the system administration functions." The Petitioner did not acknowledge or explain 
these changes. 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the job description ·'does not contain specific 
information describing what function the beneficiary will be managing. Instead .... it appears that 
the beneficiary will be performing routine day-to-day tasks.'' The Director added that the Petitioner 
had not provided information about the individuals who would work under the Beneficiary's 
direction. 
On appeal, the Petitioner states that the job description shows that ··a majority of Beneficiary"s duties 
would be directly related to the management of the VoiP department:· ··and that he would be 
alleviated from performing non-qualifying job duties." The Petitioner also asserts that the 
''Beneficiary will ... primarily perform high-level responsibilities related to VoJP function." 
The Petitioner has established that the Beneficiary has discretionary authority over the essential 
VoiP function. But the Petitioner has not shown that the Beneficiary"s duties in this regard will be 
primarily at a managerial level. The list of duties included a rough breakdown of the time spent on 
each group of tasks, but each group included a variety of activities, some of them more managerial 
than others. Several of the listed items indicated that the Beneficiary would be performing 
Matter (?fS-1-, Inc. 
operational tasks, such as "participating in the engineering, configuration. installation. maintenance 
and upgrade of the customers' Voice over IP (VoiP) deployment.,. Others are ambiguous. such as 
"troubleshoot[ing] issues" and "[i]mplementing. supporting and managing the VOIP and SIP 
infrastructure." 
As noted above, the Petitioner initially stated that the Beneficiary would ''[b ]uild system health 
monitors" and "[p ]erform system administration functions." The Petitioner's subsequent alterations 
to the job description do not negate the inclusion of these items in the first version of the description. 
The Petitioner asserts that the Beneficiary would ''provide critical training to U.S. Systems 
Engineers in the deployment of VoiP Services and oversee the U.S. VoiP department." This and 
other statements in the record, including the appellate brief. indicate that the Beneficiary would be 
providing this training himself: rather than supervising training provided by others. 
The Petitioner has stated that VoiP functions are largely handled overseas and its U.S. workers are 
not fully trained in that area. The Petitioner submits technical documentation regarding VoiP 
technology, and materials showing that the type of work in the Beneficiary's specialty is ditTerent 
from the expertise ofthe Petitioner's U.S. employees. 
The emphasis on training also supports the conclusion that the Beneficiary would be performing. 
rather than primarily overseeing, the VoiP-related functions listed in the job description: the 
Petitioner stipulates that its U.S. workers are not yet fully qualified to perform those functions. and 
therefore would be limited in their ability to relieve the Beneficiary from performing them himself. 
The emphasis on the Beneficiary's personal involvement in training undermines the assertion that 
the Beneficiary will ''primarily perform high-level responsibilities." Training front-line employees 
is not a high-level responsibility. 
The Petitioner asserts that the Beneficiary will devote more time to managerial tasks once the 
company has hired or trained a VoiP-proficient staff: but we cannot approve the petition now based 
on conditions that do not yet exist. The petition must be approvable when tiled. 8 C.F.R. 
§ 103.2(b)(1). A petitioner must establish that the position offered to a beneficiary. when the 
petition was filed, merits classification as a managerial or executive position. See Maller of 
Michelin Tire Corp., 17 l&N Dec. 248, 249 (Reg') Comm'r 1978). Here. the Petitioner has not met 
that standard. 
III. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary will primarily manage an essential function of 
the petitioning entity. 
Matter (~fS-1-, Inc. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
Cite as Matter o.lS-1-. Inc., ID# 813907 (AAO Nov. 29, 2017)