While the L-1B visa/status may be granted for up to three years, employees of newly established companies will typically only be granted one year by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services . The U.S. subsidiary/parent company must demonstrate that a qualifying relationship exists with the foreign company/qualified organization. Qualifying organizations include a parent company, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate. E-1 and E-2 visas are available to citizens of foreign countries that have a treaty of commerce and navigation, or a bilateral investment treaty providing for nonimmigrant entries, with the United States.
The L Visas (L-1A and L-1B) are for temporary workers who, within 3 years preceding his/her application for admission, were employed abroad continuously for one year by a parent, branch, affiliate, or subsidiary of the U.S. petitioning company. The individual must seek to enter the U.S. temporarily in order to render his/her services to a branch of the same employer or a parent, affiliate, or subsidiary thereof in a capacity that is managerial, executive, or involves specialized knowledge. A foreign company or organization, however, must have, or be in the process of establishing, a legal entity in the United States which is, or will be, doing business as an employer to transfer an employee under INA 101.
In addition, certain relatives of L1 visa beneficiaries may be eligible for derivative L2 visas. This article will provide an overview of general requirements for L1 and L2 petitions. The L-1A category is for foreign nationals coming to work in the U.S. in an executive or managerial capacity for a U.S. subsidiary, affiliate, or parent company of the foreign employer. If an affiliated U.S. subsidiary or parent company does not yet exist, the L-1A classification allows the foreign company to send the executive or manager to the United States for the purpose of establishing the affiliated subsidiary or parent company. l1a visa -1B category is for foreign workers who hold specialized knowledge of the company’s processes, procedures, or products that someone outside the company would not have. Both L-1A and L-1B employees must have worked for the foreign entity for at least one continuous year of the last three years prior to filing the application.
In general, the intent of the L-1 classification is the intracompany transfer to the United States of full-time executive, management, or specialized knowledge personnel. However, while full-time employment by the beneficiary is anticipated, INA 101 does not require that the beneficiary perform full-time services within the United States. An executive of a company with branch offices in Canada and the United States, for example, could divide normal work hours between those offices and still qualify for an L-1 visa. The applicant’s principal purpose while in the United States, however, must be consistent with L status.
Michael looked at my background and was confident that I could be successful in the EB2 NIW category. Ashoori Law have a fantastic online portal, where the whole application is managed – you can monitor step by step what is required, there are user friendly forms for information gathering, and easy uploading of evidence documents. Messaging is handled securely through the portal, enabling the whole application history to be in one place, readily accessible for any future query.Having filed, Ashoori Law didn’t go silent on me!
If you are outside the U.S., you will need to go through consular processing, which involves going to a U.S. consulate or embassy for a one-on-one interview with an immigration officer. The L1 visa reform act of 2004 makes it clear that the petitioning employee must be supervised or controlled by the affiliated employer only, while working in the United States. In addition, the job functions performed by the petitioning employee shall not be considered as labor for hire. The petitioning U.S. employer must apply for the foreign employees L-1B visa. Therefore, both employer and employee must meet certain eligibility requirements for L-1B visa. Both the employer and employee must have evidence of their respective qualifications and eligibility for the employee to qualify as an L1B specialized knowledge for U.S. individual.
Consulate determines whether the employment circumstances are appropriate for L-1A or L-1B status. The specialized knowledge concept has suffered from poor definition and inconsistent application by U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services adjudicators over the years.
Parent companies are typically larger, and may own stock in the smaller company (-ies) controlled. An applicant’s spouse and their minor-age, unmarried children are eligible for an L-2 visa. An L-2 is valid for the same duration of stay as the spouse/parent holding either L-1A or L-1B Visa.
Must provide evidence describing in detail the duties to be performed in managing the essential function, i.e., identify the function with specificity and establish the proportion of the beneficiary’s daily duties attributed to managing the essential function. In addition, the description of the applicant’s daily duties must demonstrate that the beneficiary manages the function rather than performs the duties related to the function. An employee who “primarily” performs the tasks necessary to produce a product or to provide services is not “primarily” employed in a managerial or executive capacity. See INA 101 and (requiring that one “primarily” perform the enumerated managerial or executive duties); see also Matter of Church Scientology lnt’l., 19 I&N Dec. 593,604 (Comm. 1988). Certain petitioners seeking the classification of multiple beneficiaries as intracompany transferees may file a single blanket petition with DHS.