dismissed L-1B Case: Decorative Stonework

.
U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF C-D-R-
APPEAL OF VERMONT SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: MAY 12, 2017 
PETITION: FORM I-129, PETITION FOR A NONIMMIGRANT WORKER 
The Petitioner, a decorative stonework wholesaler based in Venezuela, 1 seeks to temporarily employ 
the Beneficiary as the managing partner, founder, chief executive officer, accountant, salesperson, 
and researcher of its new U.S. subsidiary under the L-IB nonimmigrant classification for 
intracompany transferees. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) § IOI(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. 
§ IIOI(a)(15)(L). The L-IB classification allows a corporation or other legal entity (including its 
affiliate or subsidiary) to transfer a qualifying foreign employee with "specialized knowledge" to 
work temporarily in the United States. 
The Director of the Vermont Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that the Beneficiary has been employed abroad, and will be employed in the 
United States, in a specialized knowledge capacity. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Beneficiary's experience with the company amounts to 
specialized knowledge. 
Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-I nonimmigrant visa classification, the petitioner must meet the 
criteria 
outlined in section IOI(a)(I5)(L) of the Act. Specifically, a qualifying organization must 
have employed the beneficiary in a qualifying managerial or executive capacity, or in a specialized 
knowledge capacity, for one continuous year within the three years preceding the beneficiary's 
application for admission into the United States. 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. 
1 The Petitioner states that it seeks to employ the Beneficiary at its branch in the United States. The regulations define a 
"branch" as an operating division or office of the same organization housed in a different location. 8 C.F.R. 
§ 214.2(1)(1 )(ii)(J). The record, however, shows that the new U.S. office is a separate legal entity, organized as a 
domestic limited liability company of which the Petitioner is the sole voting member. As such, the U.S. company, 
is a wholly-owned subsidiary, not a branch, of the petitioning company. 
Matter of C-D-R-
The statute defines specialized knowledge as a special knowledge of the company product and its 
application in international markets or an advanced level of knowledge of processes and procedures of 
the company. Section 214(c)(2)(B) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1184(c)(2)(B). Our regulations define 
specialized knowledge as: 
' [S]pecial knowledge possessed by an individual of the petltwning organization's 
product, service, research, equipment, techniques, management or other interests and its 
application in international markets, or an advanced level of knowledge or expertise in 
the organization's processes and procedures. 
8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(D). 
An individual L-lB petition filed on Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, must include 
evidence that the beneficiary's prior year of employment abroad was in a position that was 
managerial, executive or Involved specialized knowledge, evidence that the beneficiary's prior 
education, training and employment qualifies him or her to perform the intended services in the 
United States, and a detailed description of the services to be performed in a specialized knowledge 
capacity in the United States. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3). 
II. EMPLOYMENT IN A SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE CAPACITY 
The sole issue to be addressed is whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary has been 
employed abroad, and will be employed in the United States, in a specialized knowledge capacity. 
A beneficiary is considered to be serving in a capacity involving specialized knowledge with respect to 
a company if the beneficiary has a special knowledge of the company product and its application in 
international markets or has an advanced level of knowledge of processes and procedures of the 
company. Section 214(c)(2)(B) of the Act. A petitioner may establish eligibility by submitting 
evidence that the beneficiary and the proffered position satisfy either prong of the definition. 
Once a petitioner articulates the nature of the claimed specialized knowledge, it is the weight and 
type of evidence which establishes whether or not the beneficiary actually possesses specialized 
knowledge. USCIS cannot make a factual determination regarding the beneficiary's specialized 
knowledge if the petitioner does not, at a minimum, articulate with specificity the nature of its 
products and services or processes and procedures, the nature of the specific industry or field 
involved, and the nature of the beneficiary's knowledge. The petitioner should also describe how 
such knowledge is typically gained within the organization, and explain how and when the 
beneficiary gained such knowledge. 
As both "special" and "advanced" are relative terms, determining whether a given beneficiary's 
knowledge is "special" or "advanced" inherently requires a comparison of the beneficiary's 
knowledge against that of others. With respect to either special or advanced knowledge, the 
petitioner ordinarily must demonstrate that the beneficiary's knowledge is not commonly held 
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Matter of C-D-R-
throughout the particular industry and cannot be easily imparted from one person to another. The 
ultimate question is whether the petitioner has met its burden of demonstrating by a preponderance 
of the evidence that the beneficiary's knowledge or expertise is advanced or special, and that the 
beneficiary's position requires such knowledge. 
The Petitioner stated: 
Since 1999 ... [the Beneficiary] has acquired an immense amount of knowledge of 
the ceramic and stone industry specifically in the South American region. 
Throughout the years, [the Beneficiary] has become a true expert in the stone 
manufacturing and home decor wholesale/retail field. She is solely responsible for all 
purchases and sales in [the petitioning company] and has made the company the 
success it is today. As the company's accountant, [the Beneficiary] prepared all 
capital accounts by compiling and analyzing account information and maintaining 
accounting controls by preparing and recommending policies and procedures. [The 
Beneficiary] was also the leading salesperson in [the petitioning company], it was her 
expertise and rapport with individual clients and outside companies, which allowed 
the company to have skyrocket sales in Venezuela .... 
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Ultimately, [the Beneficiary's] goal is to use her specialty and purchase U.S. made 
home decor to provide to South America .... [The Beneficiary] is the only employee 
with the knowledge, experience, passion and dedication to be able to successfully pull 
off this business venture. . . . [The Beneficiary] will strictly sell said products in 
South America through [the Petitioner]. No other employee of this company would 
be equipped to handle this task. 
With respect to the Petitioner's assertion that its other employees could not perform the 
Beneficiary's tasks, the Petitioner's payroll records identify four employees in Venezuela: the 
president (the Beneficiary), the vice president (her spouse), a secretary, and an assistant. 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary worked abroad as a "salesperson, accountant, researcher 
and President," and would work in the United States as a "Managing Partner/Founder/CEO," and as 
a salesperson, accountant, and researcher. Therefore, the Beneficiary's responsibilities would be 
roughly the same in the United States as they had been abroad. The Petitioner did not specify the 
nature of the Beneficiary's leadership roles abroad or in the United States, but the U.S. company's 
business plan listed the Beneficiary's intended U.S. responsibilities: 
Accountant 
• Prepares asset, liability, and capital account entries by compiling and 
analyzing account information. 
• Documents financial transactions by entering account information. 
• Recommends financial actions by analyzing accounting options. 
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Matter of C-D-R-
• Summarizes current financial status by collecting information; prepanng 
balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and other reports. 
• Substantiates financial transactions by auditing documents. 
• Maintains accounting controls by preparing and recommending policies and 
procedures. 
• Guides accounting clerical staff by coordinating activities and answering 
questions. 
• Reconciles financial discrepancies by collecting and analyzing account 
information. 
• Secures financial information by completing data base backups. 
Salesperson 
• Services existing accounts, obtains orders, and establishes new accounts by 
planning and organizing daily work schedule to call on existing or potential 
sales outlets and other trade factors. 
• Adjusts content of sales presentations by studying existing and potential 
volume of dealers. 
• Submits orders by referring to price lists and product literature. 
• Keeps team informed by submitting activity and results reports, such as daily 
call reports, weekly work plans, and monthly and annual territory analyses 
Research 
• Collect data on consumers, competitors and market place and consolidate 
information into actionable items, reports and presentations 
• Understand business objectives and design surveys to discover prospective 
customers' preferences 
• Compile and analyze statistical data using modern and traditional methods to 
collect them 
• Perform valid and reliable SWOT analysis 
• Interpret data, formulate reports and make recommendations 
• Catalogue findings to databases 
• Provide competitive analysis on various companies' market offerings, identify 
market trends, pricing/business models, sales and methods of operation 
• Evaluate program methodology and key data to ensure that data on the 
releases are accurate and the angle of the release is correct 
• Remain fully informed on market trends, other parties' research and 
implement best practices 
The references to other employees, such as "accounting clerical staff' and a sales "team," appear to 
conflict with the Petitioner's statement that the Beneficiary "will be the only U.S. employee." The 
U.S. company's business plan indicated that the company would grow and open more offices, but 
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Matter of C-D-R-
offered no time frame for this growth and did not indicate that the company would hire any other 
employees during its first year of operation. 
Asked to explain how the Beneficiary's duties involve specialized knowledge, the Petitioner stated 
that the Beneficiary relied on "private tutoring lessons from educators who are experts in the field of 
accounting, secretarial work, sales and marketing." General skills in those fields, however, do not 
constitute specialized knowledge. By definition, specialized knowledge is specific to a particular 
employer. Information and skills that the Beneficiary learned through outside tutors lie outside that 
definition. Also, the assertion that the Beneficiary knows the petitioning company better than any 
other employee is not sufficient to show specialized knowledge absent evidence that the knowledge 
required to perform general accounting, sales and market research duties for the Petitioner is 
demonstrably different from that commonly held among similarly employed workers in the 
Petitioner's industry. 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the Beneficiary's familiarity with her own company 
"does not automatically constitute special or advanced knowledge." The Director also found that the 
Beneficiary's duties in accounting, sales, and research, as described, do not involve or require 
special or advanced knowledge. 
On appeal, the Petitioner repeats its initial assertion that the Beneficiary "has become a true expert in 
the stone manufacturing and home decor wholesale/retail field." Expertise in a field of endeavor is 
not the same thing as specialized knowledge. Specialized knowledge is specific to a particular 
employer, whereas expertise can also be found among experienced employees of other companies 
that sell similar products. Knowledge or expertise that is commonly held throughout a petitioner's 
industry is not considered specialized and the Petitioner has not submitted evidence to differentiate 
the Beneficiary's knowledge from what would commonly held in the field. 
Special knowledge concerns a given company's "product, service, research, equipment, techniques, 
management, or other interests and its application in international markets." 8 C.F.R. 
§ 214.2(1)(1 )(ii)(D). The Petitioner manufactures no products; all of its employees are office staff. 
Therefore, it has no equipment to make those products, and conducts no research to develop them. 
The Petitioner has not shown how its services or techniques differ from those of other companies 
that sell comparable products. Knowledge of the industry as a whole is not special knowledge. 
The Petitioner states that the Beneficiary has worked with the company since 1999, but advanced 
knowledge is more than length of experience. The regulation cited above requires an "advanced 
level of knowledge or expertise in the organization's processes and procedures." The Petitioner has 
stated in general terms that the Beneficiary's expertise is indispensable to the company, and that she 
is largely responsible for its success, but the Petitioner identified no specific processes or procedures 
of which the Beneficiary has advanced knowledge. 
The record does not show that the Beneficiary has been or will be employed in a specialized 
knowledge position. Although the Petitioner asserts that the Beneficiary's position requires 
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Matter of C-D-R-
specialized knowledge, it has not sufficiently articulated the basis for this assertion. The Petitioner 
has not submitted probative evidence of the knowledge and expertise required for the Beneficiary's 
position that differentiates the employment from similar positions within the industry. Specifics are 
clearly an important indication of whether a beneficiary's duties involve specialized knowledge, 
otherwise meeting the definitions would simply be a matter of reiterating the regulations. Fedin 
Bros. Co., Ltd. v. Sava, 724 F. Supp. 1103, 1108 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), aff'd, 905 F.2d 41 (2d. Cir. 1990). 
We note that, in addition to the Petitioner's specialized knowledge claim, the Petitioner has asserted 
that the Beneficiary served as the Petitioner's president abroad, but the Petitioner has provided few 
details about this element of the Beneficiary's work abroad and has not claimed that her foreign 
employment has been in a managerial or executive capacity. The definitions of "managerial 
capacity" and "executive capacity" require a given beneficiary's work to be primarily of a 
managerial or executive nature. See section 101(a)(44)(A), (B) of the Act. As shown above, the 
Petitioner acknowledges that the Beneficiary has had significant responsibilities in accounting, sales, 
and market research, none of which qualify as managerial or executive. 
III. CONCLUSION ' 
The Petitioner has not shown that the Beneficiary's employment abroad was managerial, executive, 
or involved specialized knowledge, or that her intended employment in the United States involves 
specialized knowledge. Therefore, the Petitioner has not established eligibility for the classification 
sought. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
Cite as Matter ofC-D-R-, ID# 343526 (AAO May 12, 2017) 
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