Corporate Executive Director’s L-1 Extension Approved in 7 Days

Year: 2019
Nationality: Chinese
Beneficiary: Ms. Peng
Company Industry: Trading Company
China Company: Established in 2013, 25 employees
US company: established in California in August 2017, with 7 employees
Beneficiary Position: Executive Director of a U.S. company

BACKGROUND
– Short operating time for U.S. companies: after Ms. Peng’s first L-1 approval, she delayed coming to the U.S. because of work and family relations and did not enter until mid-December 2018, followed by the Christmas and New Year holidays, and it was already January 2019 when she rented an office.
– Poor financial position of the U.S. company: although the company was established in 2017, it is not operating, has zero income from tax bills in 2018 and will not be able to turn around in the first half of 2019, with the company continuing to be in the red.
– Difficult to manage employees in the United States, with high turnover and the inability to find suitable employees to serve the company in the short term.
– Ms. Peng is not very good at English and is not familiar with the local business environment in California, so she feels that she is constrained in every way after coming to the U.S., and her work cannot be carried out properly.
– Under the Trump policy, the USCIS has raised the requirements for L-1 multinational managers to the most stringent standards for processing L-1 petitions, and many of the previous practices are no longer viable.

In 2018, Ms. Peng applied for an L-1 multinational manager visa through Tsang & Associates for a period of one year, expiring in September 2019. Joseph Zang and Chen to learn more about what to do after L-1 entry? How to prepare for the extension? Is it possible to help her get a green card? Since there was not much time left for the first L-1, we immediately made an extension plan for Ms. Peng and will apply for both L-1 extension and EB-1C immigration for her if her company is doing well.

KEYS TO SUCCESS

Fully understand the L-1 extension and related regulations and work with the attorney to quickly establish data on all aspects of the company .
After Ms. Peng arrived in the U.S. and was guided by Zang, Dikai & Associates, she immediately started a series of activities such as renting an office, recruiting employees, structuring a website, financial accounting, daily operation of the company, business promotion, etc. She kept in close contact with her lawyer and did not take any detours in the preparation of the data, understanding which documents should be kept, whether the data met the requirements, what are the key points when preparing the documents, how to use the parts that are not available The time of data preparation was greatly shortened by other reinforcement. Ms. Peng came to the U.S. alone and everything was difficult at the beginning, but with the help of our law firm, she was able to do things in an orderly manner; she was able to get help at any time when she encountered some problems in recruiting employees or running the business, and finally got through the initial adjustment period.

Tsang’s legal team reminds: Under the current Trump policy, the difficulty of L-1 is greatly enhanced, and the notice of replacement (RFE) is often more than a dozen pages long, requiring very detailed information about the company’s business status, the employee’s academic background, and the content of the L-1 executive’s work. The executive’s own corporate strategy, the work he or she has led to completionProjectsThe L-1 extensions were prepared in accordance with the RFE requirements, and sometimes it took several months to prepare the data. Because Tsang & Associates is familiar with the latest L-1 trends, we prepared Ms. Peng’s L-1 extension in accordance with RFE requirements, patiently guided the client, and strictly reviewed the data provided by the client from the perspective of the USCIS, and sent back any unqualified data to the client for revision or re-preparation, in order to finally complete all documents in a comprehensive manner. We submitted over 1000 pages of L-1 extension data, and finally avoided the need for a supplemental document to be approved directly.

Assembling the U.S. team to buy valuable time to sprint the company’s performance.
The main task of Ms. Peng’s U.S. company was to develop the U.S. market so that the Chinese company’s products could be sold directly to the U.S. and gain a larger market share. After Ms. Peng came to California and rented an office, there were no employees under her. Since the L-1 MNC manager could not be a first-line supervisor and could not act as a salesperson herself, Ms. Peng was in a hurry and spent a lot of time recruiting middle-level supervisors first, then instructing HR and sales managers to set up sales teams, signing agents and partners, etc. For the company’s financial and capital situation, Ms. Peng communicated with the accountant and Zangdikai lawyer team, and discussed with the Chinese parent company. Although the company continued to lose money, the parent company’s follow-up investment gave the US company the bottom line, and finally in just six months from March to August, the US company’s order volume sprinted over $500,000 and was able to deliver a reasonable semi-annual financial statement. We also supplemented the original business plan with a detailed business plan.

The U.S. company also grew from zero employees at the beginning to seven employees, set up four departments, and was on the right track of operations in just six months, laying the foundation for subsequent growth.

Comment by Mr. Tsang: L-1 has no statutory requirements for company performance and number of employees, and it depends on each industry and company’s specific situation. Even if the company is in a loss-making situation, it does not mean that the L-1 cannot be passed.

Ms. Peng’s work in the United States is defined and presented.
Ms. Peng was in charge of finance for her domestic company, but how could she lead the whole company after coming to the U.S. as the executive director? During the initial L-1 petition, USCIS questioned Ms. Peng’s ability and job title, so in preparation for the extension, Tsang & Associates discussed how Ms. Peng’s work in the U.S. could be better presented to USCIS. Tsang & Associates assisted her in submitting several employee work reports from U.S. companies, and Ms. Peng provided guidance and responses based on the reports, as well as Ms. Peng’s own work plan, work schedule, etc. It can be seen that Ms. Peng is indeed serving as the executive director after coming to the U.S., leading the company’s operation from formulating the company’s development strategy, establishing the company’s management team, expanding the sales pipeline, product pricing, improving after-sales service, cost control and profit improvement, etc. She has delivered a brilliant report card after six months, which meets the requirements of the U.S. company for executives.

Attorney Tsang comments: The USCIS often questions the managerial/executive position of the applicant, arguing that the applicant’s work does not meet the L-1 executive standard, especially in small companies, where the applicant is often the general manager, sales, customer service, cashier, and other multiple positions. The previous practice of providing only basic documents such as proof of company employment, business cards, pay stubs, tax returns, etc. no longer meets the current USCIS audit standards. This is the reason why many L-1s fail nowadays.

OUTCOME
After thorough preparation, Tsang & Associates filed Ms. Peng’s L-1 extension petition in August 2019, opting for an expedited hearing, and 4 days later, Ms. Tang received an email from USCIS notifying her of the approval, and 3 days later, the USCIS online system also switched to approval status, and soon both the firm and Ms. Peng received paper I-797 Both the firm and Ms. Peng received paper I-797 approval notices. Ms. Peng was very excited and sighed that the hard work was finally worth it! She is also very grateful to the team of Zang, Dikai & Associates for their help in getting her through the most difficult period after she came to the United States. She will continue to rely on Tsang & Associates to file her EB-1C petition as soon as possible.

Attorney team says: After EB-5, L-1 has become popular in China, and many of our clients want to come to the U.S. through the L-1 route as soon as possible. After the USCIS raised the difficulty of L-1, some of them have switched to O-1 outstanding talents, F-1 students, etc. However, due to the information inequality, the domestic guests’ knowledge of L-1 is basically still stuck in the situation of a few years ago, thinking that coming to the U.S. to open a company and producing some basic company information will make them L-1, and some of them are even tied to it. Under the guidance of some intermediaries, the clients did not know the situation and jumped into the L-1, investing a lot of money, not to mention that the strict criteria now often result in rejection, and the clients cannot obtain the status and regret it. Therefore, we remind our clients who intend to apply for L-1/EB-1C to learn more about the application, consult with an attorney to discuss the application options and feasibility, and get the right information to make sure they can meet the requirements before starting. If you are interested in applying for L-1 or EB-1C, you are welcome to contact Tsang & Associates to schedule an appointment.

*To protect customer privacy, customer names are pseudonyms.