remanded L-1A Case: Manufacturing

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
Non-Precedent Decision of the
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: SEP. 26, 2023 In Re: 19199815 
Appeal of California Service Center Decision 
Form 1-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker (L-lA Manager or Executive) 
The Petitioner, a manufacturer of personal and household products, seeks to extend the Beneficiary's 
temporary employment as its vice president under the L-lA nonirnmigrant 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 the Petitioner would employ the Beneficiary in a managerial capacity. The matter is 
now before us on appeal. 8 C.F.R. § 103.3. 
The Petitioner bears the burden of proof to demonstrate eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence. 
Matter ofChawathe , 25 l&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). We review the questions in this matter 
de novo. Matter of Christo 's, Inc. , 26 I&N Dec. 537, 537 n.2 (AAO 2015). Upon de novo review, 
we will withdraw the Director's decision and remand the matter for entry of a new decision consistent 
with the following analysis. 
I. LAW 
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. 
"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. 
II. ANALYSIS 
In denying the petition, the Director concluded the Petitioner did not establish it would employ the 
Beneficiary in a managerial capacity. The Director concluded that the Petitioner did not provide a 
sufficiently detailed description of the Beneficiary's job duties and did not submit sufficient evidence 
in support of its claim that he has the required authority over personnel actions. 
On appeal, the Petitioner submits additional evidence intended to document the Beneficiary's authority 
over personnel actions. Further, it contends that the previously submitted evidence was sufficient to 
establish eligibility for the benefit sought by a preponderance of the evidence. The Petitioner, citing 
Matter ofZ-A-, Inc., Adopted Decision 2016-02 (AAO Apr. 14, 2016), maintains that the Director did 
not review and consider all relevant evidence in evaluating whether the Beneficiary would primarily 
perform duties in a managerial capacity. 1 
While we do not agree with the Petitioner's assertion that the record as presently constituted 
establishes eligibility for the benefit sought, we conclude that the Director did not provide the 
Petitioner with adequate notice of evidentiary deficiencies that are material to the issue on appeal, 
particularly relating to the company's staffing and structure. Further, because the Director's analysis 
was primarily limited to a discussion of the Beneficiary's job duties, we agree that the denial was not 
based on a review of all relevant evidence. Accordingly, we will withdraw the Director's decision 
and remand the matter for farther review and entry of a new decision consistent with the following 
discussion. 
The Petitioner is a manufacturing company that claimed 33 employees at the time of filing in June 
2020. In a supporting letter, the company stated that the Beneficiary, as vice president, reports to the 
company's president and "directly manages the R&D Department, the Production Department and 
Quality Control Department, and the subordinate managers of the departments who in turn supervise 
many individual department employees." The Petitioner provided a description of the Beneficiary's 
duties indicating the percentage of time he would allocate to nine different areas of responsibility. The 
description was consistent with the Petitioner's claim he would oversee the company's research and 
development and production departments, and we disagree with the Director's determination that the 
position description included operational, administrative, and other non-managerial functions. 
However, as discussed below, there are inconsistencies and other evidentiary deficiencies in the record 
with respect to the company's staffing and structure which prohibit a determination that the description 
represents the Beneficiary's actual duties within the context of the Petitioner's business as of the date 
of filing. 
1 In Matter ofZ-A-. we emphasized that USCTS must review the totality of the evidence when examining whether a given 
beneficiary would be employed in a managerial or executive capacity, including the job description, 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 evidence contributing to 
understanding a beneficiary's actual duties and role in a business. 
2 
The initial evidence included two organizational charts, one for the entire company and one specific 
to the Beneficiary's position. The company-wide chart identifies the Beneficiary as one of two vice 
presidents reporting to the company president and shows that each vice president oversees three 
departments. 2 However, it does not identify the job titles of subordinate staff or the number of staff 
in each department. This chart shows that the Beneficiary oversees: (1) the R&D Department (which 
includes both product formulation/engineering and product packaging functions, such as graphic 
design, bottle design, product planning and copywriting); (2) the production department (which 
includes bottle production, preparation, filling and packaging, bar soap, transshipment, and 
equipment); and (3) the quality control (QC) department, which is further broken down into EQC, 
IQC, PQC, and OQC divisions and a QC Lab. The chart specific to the Beneficiary's position indicates 
that he would supervise an R&D manager, a production manager, and a quality control manager. 
Although this chart identifies his direct subordinates by name, it also lacked information regarding the 
number and types of staff employed in each department. 
The initial evidence included copies of the Petitioner's IRS Forms W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, for 
2019, and the company's 2020 payroll records through mid-June. The payroll evidence confirms the 
employment of the individuals identified as the R&D manager and the quality control manager as of 
June 2020, but does not show that the company employed the claimed production manager in 2019 or 
2020. 3 Therefore, the Petitioner did not establish that the production manager position was filled at 
the time of filing. We also note that the Beneficiary, the R&D manager and the quality control 
department manager are all identified in the Petitioner's payroll records as employees of the R&D 
department as of June 2020, and all earned similar wages, which raises questions regarding the 
hierarchy depicted on the organizational chart. 
Further, the evidence provided on appeal introduces additional discrepancies to the record. To 
corroborate the Beneficiary's authority over personnel actions for his direct subordinates, the 
Petitioner has submitted annual appraisals he ostensibly completed for the production department 
manager, R&D department manager, and QC department manager on January 15, 2020, and leave 
requests he approved for them in 2019. However, other evidence in the record shows that all three 
department managers were hired after January 2020.4 The Petitioner also submits leave requests 
ostensibly approved by the production manager for his own subordinates during the first half of 2020, 
but these documents raise similar credibility concerns because most of them pre-date the production 
manager's start date with the company, and some of the employees, according to the payroll evidence, 
did not work in the production department as indicated on the request forms. These discrepancies, if 
unresolved, could result in a determination that this evidence was created subsequent to the filing of 
the petition and does not reflect past personnel actions taken by the Beneficiary and his subordinate, 
as claimed. 
2 The other vice president was depicted as overseeing domestic and international sales and marketing departments, and an 
accounting department that handles accounting administration, personnel, purchasing and logistics functions. 
3 In response to the Director's request for evidence, the Petitioner stated that it had a new production manager, identified 
as F-R-Z. The Petitioner's payroll records show that F-R-Z- received his initial salary payment from the company in May 
2020. The Petitioner did not state when this individual assumed the production manager position. 
4 The three managers for whom the Petitioner provided performance appraisals were first paid by the company between 
March 2020 and May 2020, according to the submitted payroll records for the first half of that year. None of them received 
an IRS Form W-2 for 2019. 
3 
In addition, although not addressed in the Director's decision, we note that the Petitioner submitted 
inconsistent position descriptions for the Beneficiary's claimed direct subordinates. At the time of 
filing, it provided descriptions for the department managers that significantly overlapped with the 
Beneficiary's own duties, indicating that these employees develop departmental goals and objectives, 
direct and oversee department activities, formulate department policies, and perform other higher­
level tasks. The position descriptions provided in response to the RFE described supervisory positions 
with significantly less discretionary authority. The Petitioner provided no explanation for the 
significant changes to the position descriptions. 
The Petitioner must resolve the inconsistencies addressed above with independent, objective evidence 
pointing to where the truth lies. Matter of Ho, 19 I&N Dec. 582, 591-92 (BIA 1988). Unresolved 
material inconsistencies may lead us to reevaluate the reliability and sufficiency of other evidence 
submitted in support of the requested immigration benefit. Id.; see also Matter of O-M-0-, 28 I&N 
Dec. 191, 197 (BIA 2021) ("by submitting fabricated evidence, the appellant compromised the 
integrity of his entire claim") ( cleaned up). 
Finally, the record contains insufficient evidence documenting the staffing levels of the Petitioner's 
six departments and the positions filled by lower-level staff. As noted, the Petitioner stated that the 
Beneficiary oversees three departments, while another vice president supervises the remaining three 
departments in the company. Given that the Petitioner indicates that it had 33 employees at the time 
of filing, the staffing composition of the various departments is relevant to evaluating the Petitioner's 
claim that each department has sufficient lower-level staff to support the claimed management 
hierarchy, and to relieve the higher-level employees from significant involvement in non-managerial 
functions. For example, the organizational chart implies that the R&D department supports multiple 
staff engaged in packaging and graphic design, product planning, copywriting, product engineering 
and product formulation. As noted, the company's June 2020 payroll records indicated that the 
department was staffed by the Beneficiary, the claimed R&D manager, the claimed quality control 
manager, and only one other employee. The R&D department does not appear on the payroll summary 
for February 2021, which suggests that there may have been a change in structure that the Petitioner 
did not disclose when responding to the Director's request for evidence. 
As the matter will be remanded, the Director should review the evidence of record, including the 
Petitioner's appeal, and may request additional evidence related to the Beneficiary's proposed U.S. 
assignment, including evidence to corroborate the Petitioner's claimed staffing levels and its 
employment of the personnel who would directly and indirectly report to the Beneficiary. The 
Petitioner should also be provided an opportunity to address the inconsistencies addressed above. Any 
evidence the Petitioner submits must establish eligibility from the date of filing through adjudication 
of the petition. See 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(l). 
III. CONCLUSION 
Considering the deficiencies noted above, many of which were not addressed in the Director's 
decision, we find it appropriate to remand the matter to the Director to reevaluate the submitted 
evidence and determine whether the Beneficiary would be employed in the United States in a 
managerial capacity. The Director should request additional evidence pertaining to the Beneficiary's 
4 
U.S. employment and any other relevant evidence deemed warranted, and allow the Petitioner a 
reasonable opportunity to respond, prior to issuing a new decision. 
ORDER: The Director's decision is withdrawn. The matter is remanded for the entry of a new 
decision consistent with the foregoing analysis. 
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