remanded L-1A Case: E-Commerce

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
InRe: 8188490 
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. 29, 2020 
The Petitioner is an e-commerce operation that seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as its 
"Managing Director" under the L-lA nonimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees who 
are coming to be employed in the United States in a managerial or executive capacity. Immigration 
and Nationality Act (the Act) section 10l(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(L). 
The Director of the Texas Service Center revoked the approval of the petition concluding that the 
Petitioner did not establish, as required, that the Beneficiary would be employed in the United States 
in a managerial or executive capacity. The Director also found that the Petitioner did not provide 
sufficient evidence showing that it had secured sufficient physical premises to house its "new office." 
The matter is now before us on appeal. 
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 remand the matter for further 
consideration. 
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. 
Under U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services regulations, the approval of an L-lA petition may 
be revoked on notice under six specific circumstances. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(9)(iii)(A). To properly 
revoke the approval of a petition, a director must issue a notice of intent to revoke that contains a 
detailed statement of the grounds for the revocation and the time period allowed for rebuttal. 8 C.F.R. 
§ 214.2(1)(9)(iii)(B). 
II. BASIS FOR REMAND 
In the L Classification Supplement to the petition, the Petitioner responded "No," when asked if the 
Beneficiary was corning to the United States to open a new office. 1 Notwithstanding this information, 
the Director issued a notice of intent to revoke (NOIR) where he incorrectly cited new office 
regulations, which do not apply to the instant Petitioner, and relied on those regulations to assess the 
Petitioner's eligibility and formulate two out of three grounds for the intended revocation. 8 C.F.R. 
§ 214.2(1)(9)(iii)(B). 
Aside from finding that the Petitioner did not provide sufficient evidence to show that the Beneficiary 
was employed abroad in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity, a requirement 
that broadly applies to all L-lA petitions, the Director issued the NOIR based on two grounds that 
apply exclusively to new office petitioners and do not apply to this Petitioner, as it does not seek new 
office classification. Namely, the NOIR determined that the Petitioner did not demonstrate that: (1) it 
had secured sufficient physical premises to house its "new office" operation; and (2) it would support 
the Beneficiary in a managerial or executive position within one year of this petition's approval. In 
contrast to the NOIR, the revocation decision addresses the issue of the Beneficiary's proposed 
employment without referencing the new office requirements that were previously applied in error. 
Nevertheless, a NOIR that incorrectly relied on new office regulations to make an adverse finding 
about the Beneficiary's proposed employment does not constitute proper notice of the intended 
grounds for revocation, as required. See id. 
The decision to revoke the approval of the petition is further undermined by several additional 
deficiencies. First, as stated above, the revocation is partly based on the Director's application of the 
"new office" requirement for sufficient physical premises, which should not have been applied to the 
Petitioner. As indicated earlier, the physical premises requirement pertains only to a "new office," a 
term that does not apply when, as in this instance, a petitioner indicates that it had been operational 
for at least one year at the time of filing. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(1)(ii)(F). Second, the Director 
incorrectly relied on the job duties that were listed to describe the Beneficiary's foreign employment 
as the basis for his adverse finding regarding the Beneficiary's proposed position in the United States. 
This leads us to question whether the adverse finding was partially based on irrelevant evidence that 
pertains to the Beneficiary's foreign, rather than his proposed, U.S. ernployrnent.2 Finally, the 
Director's hybrid reference to "the first three elements of the definition of executive capacity and the 
fourth element of managerial capacity" is confusing and detracts from an understanding of which 
statutory definition - managerial or executive capacity - the Director relied upon in reaching the 
adverse conclusion. 3 
1 The term "new office" refers to an organization which has been doing business in the United States for less than one year. 
8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(1 )(ii)(F). 
2 The Director did not formally cite the Beneficiary's foreign employment as a basis for the revocation; however, the fact 
that the Director listed the Beneficiary's foreign job duties and referred to the foreign entity as the source of"some narrative 
to describe the tasks involved in these broadly stated duties" indicates that, at the very least, there is a lack of clarity as to 
the Director's intent to incorporate the Beneficiary's employment abroad as a third basis for the revocation, as was initially 
done in the NOIR. 
3 An L-IA petition may be approved only if all four elements of either managerial or executive capacity, or both capacities, 
is satisfied. 
2 
As a result of the deficiencies in the NOIR and subsequent revocation, the Director did not provide 
the Petitioner with a meaningful opportunity to challenge the grounds for the revocation. For these 
reasons, we will remand the matter for entry of a new decision. The Director may request any 
additional evidence deemed warranted and allow the Petitioner to submit such evidence within a 
reasonable period of time. 
ORDER: The decision of the Director is withdrawn. The matter is remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with the foregoing opinion and for the entry of a new decision. 
3