dismissed L-1B Case: Information Technology

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF N-T- CORP. 
APPEAL OF VERMONT SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: JULY 25,2017 
PETITION: FORM I-129, PETITION FOR A NONIMMIGRANT WORKER 
The Petitioner, which provides information technology services to clients in the telecommunications 
industry, seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as a technical support manager under the L-1 B 
nonimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees. See Immigration and Nationality Act (the 
Act) section IOI(a)(15)(L), 8 U.S.C. § IIOI(a)(l5)(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: (I) the Beneficiary's prior education, training, and employment qualify 
him to perform the intended services in the United States; (2) the Petitioner will employ the 
Beneficiary in the United States in a specialized knowledge capacity; and (3) the Beneficiary's 
offsite placement would be in connection with the provision of a product or service requiring 
specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning employer. The Director also found that the 
Beneficiary's foreign employment did not involve specialized knowledge, but met an alternative 
requirement by being a primarily managerial position. 
On appeal, the Petitioner submits additional evidence and asserts that the Director misconstrued the 
regulations and the Petitioner's supporting evidence. 
Upon de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-1 nonimmigrant visa classification, the petitioner must meet the 
criteria outlined in section 10l(a)(15)(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. 
Matter of N-T- Corp. 
An individual L-IB petition filed on Form 1-129, 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. THE BENEFICIARY'S PRIOR EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND EMPLOYMENT 
A petitioner must submit evidence that, for at least one continuous year during the three years prior 
to the filing of the petition, the petitioner's multinational organization employed the beneficiary in a 
position that was managerial, executive, or involved specialized knowledge and that the 
beneficiary's prior education, training, and employment qualifies the beneficiary to perform the 
intended services in the United States. The work in the United States need not be the same work 
which the beneficiary performed abroad. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(iv). 
The Director found that the Petitioner had shown that its foreign subsidiary employed the 
Beneficiary in a managerial capacity, but not that the Beneficiary's prior education, training, and 
employment qualify him to perform the intended services in the United States. On appeal, the 
Petitioner contends that the Beneficiary's foreign employment also involved specialized knowledge, 
and that the Beneficiary is qualified for the U.S. position mostly through his years of experience, and 
also, to a lesser extent, several training courses he completed in 2006. 
The Petitioner has not submitted documentation of the Beneficiary's claimed training courses, 
stating that the foreign subsidiary has not retained attendance logs from 2006. Nevertheless, the 
Petitioner has consistently indicated that the bulk of the Beneficiary's training took the form of on­
the-job experience, as the Beneficiary has worked for the foreign subsidiary since 2002. 
Questions regarding a beneficiary's specialized knowledge are separate from the requirement that a 
beneficiary must possess the proper education, training, and employment experience. Therefore, a 
beneficiary can be fully qualified for a given position whether or not that position involves 
specialized knowledge. 
As we will discuss below, the Director found that the Beneficiary's intended U.S. position does not 
involve specialized knowledge. However, the Director did not specify what necessary qualifications 
the Beneficiary lacks with respect to his intended position. In fact, the Director concluded that the 
Beneficiary worked as a manager abroad, and his proposed U.S. duties "largely involve first-line 
supervisory duties." The Director concluded that "the position in the United States is substantially 
similar" to the foreign position. 
Because the Beneficiary has years of experience in a position that "is substantially similar" to the 
offered U.S. position, we withdraw the Director's finding that the Beneficiary lacks the training, 
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Matter ~[N-T- Corp.· 
education, and employment to qualify for the U.S. position. However, we agree with the Director's 
conclusion that the two positions do not involve specialized knowledge. 
III. EMPLOYMENT IN A SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE CAPACITY 
The Petitioner asserts on appeal that it has established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the 
U.S. position involves specialized knowledge. The Petitioner contends that the Director selectively 
read the job description and overlooked other record evidence. We disagree, as explained below. 
A petition for L-·1 B nonimmigrant status must include evidence that the petitioner will employ the 
beneficiary in a specialized knowledge capacity, including a detailed description of the services to be 
performed. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(ii). The regulations define specialized knowledge as: 
[S]pecial 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(l)(l)(ii)(D). 
In order to establish eligibility, the petitioner must show that the individual will be employed in a 
specialized knowledge capacity. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3)(ii). The statutory definition of specialized 
knowledge at Section 214( c )(2)(B) of the Act is comprised of two equal but distinct subparts. First, 
an individual is considered to be employed in a capacity involving specialized knowledge if that 
person "has a special knowledge of the company product and its application in international 
markets." Second, an individual is considered to be serving in a capacity involving specialized 
knowledge if that person "has an advanced level of knowledge of processes and procedures of the 
company." See also 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(D). The petitioner may establish eligibility by 
submitting evidence that the beneficiary and the proffered position satisfy either subpart 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. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cannot make a !actual determination 
regarding the specialized knowledge required for the position if the petitioner does not, at a 
minimum, articulate with specificity the nature of the its products and services or processes and 
procedures, the nature of the specific industry or field involved, and the nature of the required 
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 position requires 
knowledge that is "special" or "advanced" inherently requires a comparison of the knowledge 
required for a given beneficiary's intended position against that of others. With respect to either 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
special or advanced knowledge, a petitiOner ordinarily must demonstrate that the required 
knowledge is not commonly held throughout the particular industry and cannot be easily impartep 
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 position requires knowledge 
or expertise that is advanced or special. 
In the present case, the Petitioner's claims appear to be based primarily on the first prong of the 
statutory definition, asserting that the position requires special knowledge of the company's products 
and their application in international markets. Because "special knowledge" concerns knowledge of 
the petitioning organization's products or services and their application in international markets, the 
Petitioner may meet its burden through evidence that the Beneficiary has, and the position involves, 
knowledge that is distinct or uncommon in comparison to the knowledge of other similarly 
employed workers in the particular industry. 
The Petitioner has developed a proprietary billing product, 
Beneficiary will work with two 
and the 
customized for each client. The Petitioner stated that the 
component modules, specifically the 
The Petitioner asserted that the 
Beneficiary "is one of only a few . . employees across the globe, who possess the specialized 
knowledge required to support our proprietary and modules and the corresponding 
services assocjated with same." 
The Petitioner stated: 
The Technical Support Manager must have a deep understanding of [the Petitioner's] 
product offering and the relevant accompanying services. These products include, 
but are not limited to: [the Petitioner's] billing product (including the 
and modules), [the Petitioner's] product; 
and [the Petitioner's] 
[The Beneficiary's] knowledge is distinct and uncommon in the telecommunications 
operations management systems industry because when compared to other-workers in 
the field, he has far more knowledge of [the Petitioner's] product offering and related 
serv1ces. 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary would work at a customer's business location, responsible 
"for the management of and applications product support and associated support 
services." The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary would have the following duties: 
• Leading in the client's Business Solutions Systems requirements and 
documentation efforts ... ; 
• Ensuring compliance with contract agreement ... ; 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
• Identifying business issues specific to the telecommunications industry and 
applying product solutions ... and thought leadership regarding the appropriate 
use and knowledge of maximizing [the Petitioner's] proprietary billing 
systems; 
• Assisting 
with project planning ... and communicating client projects to support 
organizations, providing overview where necessary; 
• Supporting [the Petitioner's] change management ... and product management 
procedures ... ; 
• ... [W]orking with Tier 1 telecommunications clients, conducting weekly client 
support meetings; preparing, facilitating, documenting and distributing action 
items and follow-up, and occasionally performing product demonstrations for Tier 
1 telecommunications clients as necessary ... ; and 
• Participating in drafting of training documentation specific to [the Petitioner's] 
proprietary and solutions. 
An organizational chart indicated. that the Beneficiary would report to the Petitioner's Senior 
Manager, Cable Accounts, and would have authority over 
The Petitioner did not specify the number of employees in 
The Petitioner stated that "the Technical Support Manager is required to have a specialized 
knowledge of each ... product, as well as a specialized knowledge of the delivery methodology and 
the deployed solutions" and "extensive experience working with Tier 1 clients." The Petitioner 
asserted that the Beneficiary "is the only such individual qualified for this role at this time." The 
Petitioner did not specify how 
many "Tier 1 clients" it has, or how 
many technical support managers 
it employs for each of those clients. 
In a request for evidence (RFE), the Director stated that most of the listed duties appear to be 
supervisory, and that therefore the Beneficiary would not primarily work with the Petitioner's 
products. The Director also found that the job description lacked detail. In response, the Petitioner 
stated that the Beneficiary "will serve as a key expert on [the Petitioner's] proprietary 
billing product and corresponding ... modules (particularly and ' and "will maintain 
responsibility for the management of these products and any associated product support issues or ... 
services." The Petitioner submitted a somewhat reworded version of the above job description, and 
stated: "Technical Support Managers ... must maintain specialized knowledge of the products, with 
which they work. It is only after an employee has developed this specialized knowledge, that they 
will be eligible to become a management-level employee with our company." 
In the denial notice, the Director found that the Beneficiary's intended responsibilities "largely 
involve first-line supervisory duties" rather than tasks that require specialized knowledge. The 
Director also found that the Petitioner had not corroborated its claims that the U.S. position requires 
specialized knowledge. 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
A petitioner must establish that it meets each eligibility requirement of the benefit sought by a 
preponderance of the evidence. Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. 369, 375-76 (AAO 2010). In 
other words, a petitioner] must show that what it claims is "more likely than not" or "probably" true. 
To determine whether a petitioner has met its burden under the preponderance standard, we consider 
not only the quantity, but also the quality (including relevance, probative value, and credibility) of 
the evidence. !d. at 376; Matter of E-M-, 20 I&N Dec. 77, 79-80 (Comm'r 1989). 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that it established eligibility by a preponderance of the evidence by 
submitting "an overwhelming amount of corroborating evidence," to which the Director applied "an 
inappropriate level of scrutiny" while imposing a higher "clear and convincing" standard of proof. 
Most of the first-hand evidence in the record consists of email messages, illustrating the 
Beneficiary's efforts to resolve various issues and problems. (Copies of more messages accompany 
the appeal.) Some of the messages concern technical aspects of the Petitioner's software, such as the 
Beneficiary's explanation that a particular software product could not perform multiple operations in 
parallel. Other messages deal with administrative issues, such as a travel budget. These messages 
demonstrate the Beneficiary's familiarity with the Petitioner's products and are consistent with the 
Director's finding of managerial or supervisory authority, but they do not show that the 
Beneficiary's past or present positions within the organization require special or advanced 
knowledge. 
In this proceeding, the Petitioner has made various arguments and claims intended to establish that 
the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge. These claims have not been entirely consistent. 
Over the course of a single letter, the Petitioner's description of the Beneficiary went from "one of 
only a few ... employees across the globe" with the required knowledge to being "unique within the 
field" and "unique within [the Petitioner's] own ranks." The key issue raised in the denial, however, 
is whether the U.S. position requires specialized knowledge, which is a separate issue from whether 
the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge. (The Director, in the denial notice, only indirectly 
addressed the latter issue.) Whatever qualifications the Beneficiary may bring to the job, it does not 
logically follow that the position requires those qualifications. To assert without elaboration or 
corroboration that the Beneficiary is the only employee capable of filling the position presumes, 
rather than establishes, that the position involves specialized knowledge. 
The Petitioner has asserted that the Beneficiary gained most of his knowledge through on-the-job 
training. The Beneficiary has considerable experience, having worked for the foreign subsidiary 
since 2002. Citing this experience, the Petitioner stated: "A new hire would need at least one year 
to begin managing [the Petitioner's] products to the degree sufficient to be allowed on client's site, 
and some additional time to become self-sufficient." The Petitioner has not established how long it 
took for the Beneficiary to become self-sufficient. All of his identified training courses took place 
within a two-month period. 
The Petitioner claims nearly 600 employees in the United States, and has implied that formal 
classroom training amounts to only a small part of the training regimen. If these hundreds of 
workers all gained familiarity with the Petitioner's products mostly through working with those 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
products, then we cannot conclude that this knowledge is difficult to acquire or time-consuming to 
transmit. Looking more specifically at the Beneficiary's intended position of technical support 
manager, the Petitioner has not provided an objective basis by which to compare that position to 
others within the company or at other companies in the same industry. The Petitioner contends that 
the Beneficiary is the only available worker able to fill that position with its client, but the contract 
with that client dates back to 2003 and the Petitioner has not shown that the Beneficiary has worked 
with that client since that date. The Petitioner does not say who provided comparable services from 
2003 to the present, or, if the position has been vacant, how it was able to provide effective service 
to that client. 
Familiarity with the Petitioner's proprietary products would, as a matter of course, be rare outside of 
the petitioning organization, but this does not mean that the supervision of support staff involves 
knowledge that is distinct or uncommon in comparison to that generally found in the particular 
industry, because other companies also offer billing software. The different types of software may 
differ in their particulars, but it does not follow that knowledge of the Petitioner's product entails a 
different degree or level of knowledge than the knowledge required to work with comparable 
products. The fact that the knowledge is proprietary, without more, is not sufficient to establish that 
it qualifies as specialized knowledge. Here, the Petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence to 
establish that the knowledge could not be easily imparted to a similarly qualified professional with 
functional expertise in billing software. 
The record as presently constituted is not sufficient in demonstrating that the Beneficiary has been or 
will be employed in a specialized knowledge position. Although the Petitioner asserts that the 
Beneficiary's position requires specialized knowledge, it has not sufficiently articulated the basis for 
this assertion. The Petitioner has only submitted a general description of the Beneficiary's job duties 
and has not identified the aspects of his position requiring special knowledge of the petitioning 
organization's product, service, research, equipment, techniques, management, or other interests. 
The Petitioner has not submitted evidence of the knowledge and expertise required for the 
Beneficiary's position that differentiates the employment from similar positions within the industry; 
instead, the Petitioner denies that there are similar positions in the industry, because the Petitioner's 
product is superior to those of its competitors. 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). A petitioner's unsupported 
statements are of very limited weight and normally will be insufficient to carry its burden of 
proof. The Petitioner must ·support its assertions with relevant, probative, and credible 
evidence. See Matter ofChawathe, 25 I&N Dec. at 369. 
For the reasons discussed above, the evidence submitted does not establish that the Petitioner will 
employ the Beneficiary in a specialized knowledge capacity in the United States. 
.
Matter of N-T- Corp. 
IV. OFFSITE EMPLOYMENT 
The Petitioner has stated that the Beneficiary will work primarily at the site of one of its customers. 
1 
If a petitioner seeks to station a beneficiary primarily at the worksite of an unaffiliated employer, 
then the petitioner must show that it will principally control and supervise the beneficiary. The 
placement must be to provide a product or service requiring specialized knowledge specific to the 
petitioner, rather than an arrangement to provide labor for hire for the unaffiliated employer. See 
section 214(c)(2)(F) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1184(c)(2)(F) 
The Director found that the Petitioner met only the first of the two provisions above. On appeal, the 
Petitioner states that the Director disregarded a significant document in the record. We disagree. As 
shown below, the cited document does not resolve the issues that the Petitioner claims it does. 
The Petitioner stated that "the in-depth customization inherent in our product lines often requires us 
to place our employees at our client sites.'' The Petitioner maintained, however: 
At no time will [the Beneficiary] work on systems that are not our own, nor will he 
take direction from anyone but [the Petitioner's] personnel .... The goal of such on­
site work is to make our ... products and solutions as functional as possible [for] our 
clients and never to outsource employees to our clients. 
The Petitioner stated that "a full, executed version of [the Petitioner's] agreement with [the 
customer] (as well as a subsequent agreement covering a long-term extension of this project) has 
been ... attached in full at Exhibit C." The petition's table of contents indicated that Exhibit C also 
included "Statements of Work, especially for the [customer's] Project." 
There is no document in the record with the title "Statement of Work." Exhibit C consists of a 
partial organizational chart; a copy of a Master License and Support Agreement from 2003, between 
the customer and (which the petitioning organi~ation 
later acquired); and a post-acquisition 2015 amendment extending the agreement until 2020. The 
Petitioner highlighted this passage from the 2003 agreement: 
will assign two dedicated support persons to Licensee's account ("Client 
Advocates"). The Client Advocates will be responsible for tracking resolution status 
of any Licensee reported problems, communicating such status to Licensee on an 
ongoing basis, and providing consulting services to Licensee regarding use of the 
System. 
1 As the record does not establish that the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge or that the offered U.S. position 
is in a specialized knowledge capacity, it was not necessary for the Director to make a separate finding regarding the 
nature of the Beneficiary's off-site employment. However, as the Director discussed this issue at length in the denial 
notice, we will address it here. 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
In the RFE, the Director stated that the submitted evidence did not establish that the Beneficiary 
would work primarll/, rather than incidentally, with the Petitioner's products. To establish the 
nature of the Beneficiary's intended role, the Director requested: 
• Copies of press releases, if any, that discuss the product or service to be provided 
by the petitioning organization to the unaffiliated employer/client. 
• A detailed description of the specific job duties that will be performed by the 
beneficiary at the unaffiliated employer's site. 
• A detailed explanation, in layman's terms, of exactly what product or service the 
petitioning organization will provide to the unaffiliated employer, and why the 
activities the beneficiary will perform are not just labor for hire. 
The Petitioner responded by stating that the Beneficiary's "role ... is to provide his expertise in 
connection with [the client's] contractual agreement with [the Petitioner], as detailed in the 
agreement and Statements of Work." The Petitioner stated that it "provides [the client] with a 
proprietary billing software product and [the Beneficiary's] services are required as he is the only 
employee, at [the petitioning company] or elsewhere, who has both the technical knowledge of this 
software in addition to the people skills required to deal with a high-value client." The Petitioner did 
not submit the requested press release, even though the 2015 amendment specifically requires the 
parties to issue one. 
In the denial notice, the Director noted that the Petitioner had not submitted any document called a 
Statement of Work (to which the Petitioner consistently referred with capital letters, implying a 
formal title). The Director acknowledged the Master License and Support Agreement and its 
amendment, but found that "[t]he agreement and the amendment do not specify what products will 
be used other than the fact that [the customer] has licensed your product." 
On appeal, the Petitioner resubmits the portion of the agreement regarding client advocates, and 
states that the Director "did not consider this evidence" when submitted previously. 
The Petitioner did not explain whether the Beneficiary would be one of the client advocates or would 
supervise the client advocates. The petition materials do not refer to the Beneficiary by name as a 
client advocate or explain the relationship between a cli,ent advocate and a technical support 
manager. The brief discussion of the role of a client advocate does not indicate that the client 
advocate would work at the client's work site, only that the client advocate would be dedicated to the 
client's account. The Beneficiary's job description does not appear to boil down to "tracking 
resolution status of any Licensee reported problems, communicating such status to Licensee on an 
ongoing basis, and providing consulting services to Licensee regarding use of the System." 
Furthermore, the 2003 agreement indicates that the customer was already using at the time; 
part 7 of the agreement concerns the planned "Migration from to 
' under which "the code base will be fully replaced .with the 
' on November 15, 2006. Because the Beneficiary is not involved in replacing 
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Matter of N-T- Corp. 
with we cannot determine how much of the 2003 agreement still applies to the Petitioner's 
relationship with the customer, or how much the role of the client advocate has changed (or if that 
position still exists at all). The 2015 amendment does not clarify the issue, and the Petitioner did not 
submit the earlier amendments which might have shed light on matters such as the decision to 
reinstate after entered into a contractual arrangement to remove and replace it. 
The agreement refers to "on-site support," but only "[ d]uring [a one-month] Beta Production 
period." The agreement also refers to product training, but the 2015 amendment deleted that 
paragraph of the agreement. The agreement further provides for testing support, but only during a 
1 05-day "acceptance period" following each product release. These provisions do not show 
a need or a plan for long-term placement of the Petitioner's workers at the client's site. 
The Petitioner has not established that the Beneficiary's intended position is identical or comparable 
to the client advocate position very briefly described in the 2003 agreement. The Petitioner has 
indicated that the Beneficiary will work with modules of the Petitioner's system, but the 
Petitioner has not provided a sufficiently complete or consistent picture of the Beneficiary's duties to 
show that the Beneficiary will primarily work with the Petitioner's systems rather than those of the 
client with whom he would work. Therefore, the Petitioner has not overcome this basis for denial. 
V. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner did not establish that the U.S. position involves specialized knowledge, or that the 
Beneficiary's placement at the worksite of an unaffiliated employer is in connection with the 
provision of a product or service requiring specialized knowledge specific to the petitioning 
employer. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
Cite as Matter of N-T- Corp., ID# 454898 (AAO July 25, 2017) 
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