dismissed L-1B Case: Financial Technology

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
In Re : 22679176 
Appeal of Texas Service Center Decision 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
Date: DEC. 15, 2022 
Form I-129, Petition for L-lB Specialized Knowledge Worker 
The Petitioner, a securities brokerage service, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as a software 
developer under the L-1 B nonimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees. Immigration and 
Nationality Act (the Act) section 101(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(L). The L-lB classification 
allows an employer 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 Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that the Beneficiary has been employed abroad in a qualifying capacity and is 
qualified for the United States position. Both determinations rested on the conclusion that the 
Petitioner had not shown that the Beneficiary's position abroad and in the United States requires 
specialized knowledge. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that its prior submissions met its burden of proof. 
Upon de nova review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LAW 
To establish eligibility for the L-1 B 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 specialized knowledge capacity. Id. The petitioner 
must also establish that the beneficiary's prior education, training, and employment qualify him or her 
to perform the intended services in the United States. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3). 
II. BACKGROUND 
The Petitioner stated that it "provides securities brokerage services specializing in algorithmic trade 
execution for interest rate products." The Petitioner claimed 3 5 employees in the United States and 
70 worldwide including its subsidiaries in India, Great Britain, and Australia. When the Petitioner 
filed the petition, its subsidiary in India had 22 employees, 16 of whom were software developers. 
According to the Beneficiary's resume, all of his employment before joining the Petitioner's 
subsidiary in India took place while he was a student, and involved navigation systems. He accepted 
a job offer from the Petitioner's subsidiary in February 2018 and began working for the company that 
July upon graduating from the I . After two years as a software 
developer, he was promoted to senior developer; at the time of filing in December 2021, he was the 
only employee at the Indian subsidiary to hold that title. The Petitioner intends to pay the Beneficiary 
a salary of $55,000 per year. 
III. SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE 
The Director determined that the Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary had previously been 
employed in a position that involved specialized knowledge, and that the U.S. position involves a 
special or advanced level of knowledge. The Petitioner does not claim that the Beneficiary's past 
employment abroad was in an executive or managerial capacity. 
As a threshold issue, we must determine whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary 
possesses specialized knowledge. If the evidence is insufficient to establish that the Beneficiary 
possesses specialized knowledge, then we cannot conclude, first, that the Beneficiary's past 
employment involved specialized knowledge, and, second, that the Beneficiary is qualified for a 
position that requires specialized knowledge. 
Under the statute, specialized knowledge consists of either "special" knowledge of the company 
product and its application in international markets or an "advanced" level of knowledge of the 
processes and procedures of the company. Section 214( c )(2)(B) of the Act. 
Specialized knowledge is also defined as knowledge possessed by an individual of the petitioning 
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(1)(1 )(ii)(D). A petitioner ordinarily must demonstrate that 
the beneficiary's knowledge is not commonly held throughout the particular industry and cannot be 
easily imparted from one person to another. See generally 2 USCIS Policy Manual L.4(B), 
https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual. 
Given the above, to establish that a beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge, a petitioner must 
specify 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. 
The Petitioner initially stated: 
[The Beneficiary] is an expert in programming languages that are not common 
nowadays, such as C++ and KDB/Q, and that are used in [the Petitioner's] software. 
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He has deep knowledge and experience in low latency, low level, multi-threading 
programming that utilizes networking. He has experience in large scale trading systems 
design with object oriented programming, design patterns and data structures. The 
Beneficiary's domain knowledge and experience in designing and developing 
algorithmic trading strategies in futures and fixed income markets, uniquely 
complements his technical skills. He also excels in exchange connectivity, market data 
handlers and FIX protocols. 
The Beneficiary has specialized knowledge of Petitioner's software systems and 
products since he has helped in developing them; see Exhibit 1. Petitioner has been 
unable to find enough software developers in the United States that have the 
qualifications and specialized knowledge the Beneficiary possesses. 
The Petitioner did not cite any supporting evidence for the assertion that C++ and KDB/Q "are not 
common" programming languages. Unsupported assertions do not meet the Petitioner's burden of 
proof. 
Although the Petitioner cited Exhibit 1 as evidence of the Beneficiary's specialized knowledge and 
his role in developing the Petitioner's software systems, that exhibit- a printout from the Petitioner's 
website - does not support those claims. The printout does not mention the Beneficiary's name. It 
indicates thatthepetitioningcompanywas founded in2008 and "executed its first client trade" "[a]fter 
2 years of R&D" (research and development), indicating that the business was underway several years 
before the Beneficiary was hired in 2018. The headlines of more recent press releases refer to new 
algorithms and other tools, but do not identify the creators of those tools. 
The Director requested additional details, stating that the "description of the beneficiary's specialized 
knowledge was vague." In response, the Petitioner submitted two nearly identical letters, one from an 
official of the petitioning U.S. employer, the other from an official of the affiliate in India. Each letter 
indicates that the Beneficiary "has a unique combination of skills, domain knowledge and experience," 
and "has contributed to many core components of the trading platform and has deep knowledge of the 
whole software infrastructure." Both letters also state: "there are no other personnel in the US that is 
[sic] in the same role and on the same level of proficiency as [ the Beneficiary]." Large portions of 
these letters repeat parts of the Petitioner's earlier letter, sometimes word-for-word. 
The Petitioner cited the Beneficiary's "fonnal education with a master's degree in aerospace 
engineering showing competence in highly technical engineering and computer skills." The Petitioner 
did not sufficiently explain how a degree in aerospace engineering provides specialized knowledge 
relevant to employment at a securities trading firm, rather than a generalized background in computer 
science. The Beneficiary's transcript from lists only two course titles that directly refer to 
computer programming: "Computational Engineering" and "GPU Programming." 
The Director denied the petition, stating that the "description of duties was vague" and not supported 
by evidence "to show the knowledge involved in performing the duties abroad was special and/or 
advanced" or that the Beneficiary's "duties for the foreign position are distinguishable from the duties 
of other similarly employed individuals within your organization and throughout the industry." 
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The Director also determined that the Petitioner had not submitted "evidence demonstrating that the 
beneficiary gained significantly different on-the-job knowledge than other employees within the 
company or received advanced or special training with respect to such product or service," or 
comparing "the beneficiary's knowledge to that of other employees and workers in the same field." 
On appeal, the Petitioner quotes from earlier statements and asserts that, apart from those statements, 
"the only other means to show [the Beneficiary's] specialized knowledge is to submit work product 
which is highly technical ... and can only be understood by people with similar expertise." This 
assertion does not answer the Director's concerns. The Petitioner has identified the tools that the 
Beneficiary uses as a senior developer, but the Petitioner has not shown that the Beneficiary's mastery 
of those tools amounts to specialized knowledge as contemplated by the statute and regulations. 
Identifying the programming languages that the Beneficiary uses does not establish that those 
languages "are not common" in his field, or that the skills the Beneficiary uses as a senior developer 
cannot be easily imparted to other workers in that field. 
We will dismiss the appeal, because the evidence does not establish that the Beneficiary possesses 
specialized knowledge and will be employed in a specialized knowledge capacity with the Petitioner 
in the United States. Therefore, the Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary was employed 
abroad in a position requiring specialized knowledge, and that the Beneficiary is qualified for a 
position in the United States that requires specialized knowledge. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
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