EB-1C Immigrant Manager Petition Approved for 7-person Company with No RFE

Applicant company.
1）Overseas company: a logistics company in Guangdong, which has been established for more than ten years and has nearly 100 employees
2) U.S. company: a trading & logistics company in California, USA, established in 2013, with 7 employees
Reassigned Employee. Mr. He, formerly the general manager of the Guangdong company, was sent to California in 2014 to take charge of the U.S. business
Nationality: Chinese
Petition Category. EB-1C Immigration for Managers of Multinational Corporations
USCIS Approval Notice.

BACKGROUND
After Mr. Ho had been traveling between China and the United States on a B-1 business visa for some time, his company decided to officially send Mr. Ho to work in the United States. At first, Mr. Ho was anxious about the delay in coming to the U.S. to work as a manager of a multinational company, but it did not go well. Later, he was introduced to Tsang & Associates by a friend, and after several communications with Joseph Tsang, he decided to change law firms after careful consideration. With the assistance of Joseph Tsang’s team, Mr. Ho finally obtained his L-1 visa in 2015, extended his L-1 for two years in 2016, and filed his I-140 petition for EB-1C at the end of 2016 with no addendum, which was approved in January 2018.

KEYS TO SUCCESS
1. Multi-layer corporate structure, non-direct parent-subsidiary relationship between US and Chinese companies
Guangdong company was established earlier, several shareholders are the initial entrepreneurs, Mr. He is also one of them; business expansion after the company has the intention to go to the United States to develop, but began not to think about helping executives to apply for L-1 or green card, set up several companies in the United States, several shareholders have participation, but the relationship and structure is more confusing, L-1 petition when the U.S. company, as the EB-1C petition company (Petitioner ) is very risky.

Attorney Tsang’s team sorted through several of their companies in the U.S., identified suitable U.S. companies, adjusted and centralized the equity interests of these two, and ultimately formed the Petitioner Company (Petitioner) when the EB-1C petition was filed with the Guangdong company owning 100% of U.S. Company A and Company A then holding the U.S. company.

2. Changing EB-1C Petitioning Companies (Petitioner)
Before Mr. Zang took over this case, the original attorney had already filed the L-1 with USCIS and the data information was already formed. Mr. Zang’s team invested a lot of energy in studying the original information and found that there were some problems with the U.S. petitioning company (Petitioner) for the L-1, but it could not be replaced at that time, so they could only do their best to prove that the L-1 was eligible on the basis of the original petition. Although approved, this company had obvious flaws for the subsequent EB-1C. Mr. Zang proposed to change the EB-1C petitioning company (Petitioner), and Mr. Ho was concerned that the previous L-1 and extensions were filed with Company A as the petitioning company (Petitioner), and now he was worried about changing the general on the spot. After analyzing with Mr. Ho and his shareholders, he decided to follow Mr. Zang’s advice to use Company B for EB-1C application.

Mr. Ho was a bit incredulous when he received the EB-1C approval notice, he didn’t expect it to be approved so smoothly! Thinking about the twists and turns at the beginning, he was both excited and emotional when he came to the law firm to express his gratitude.

3. 7 employees, certified to hold executive positions
This is the usual difficulty in applying for L-1 and EB-1C. Mr. Ho has been operating in the United States for more than two years, and his company is still in its infancy, with 5-7 employees (plus Mr. Ho and his wife), and he is also applying for an L-1 for another manager of the company. Although the company is small, Mr. Zang’s team was able to prove that Mr. He was in a senior management position, not an ordinary first-line supervisor.

OUTCOME
EB-1C is available to immigrant multinational business executives who apply for immigration. There is no need to apply for a labor certification from the Department of Labor, but rather apply directly to the USCIS without waiting for a quota to be placed on a waiting list, and the processing time is shorter. However, EB-1C processing cannot be accelerated (premium processing) and the current processing time is approximately 9-13 months. Please see the latest USCIS processing schedule.

EB-1C requires a qualifying corporate relationship by having a company in both the U.S. and overseas; the overseas company can be the parent company and the U.S. company a subsidiary, or vice versa; either by purchasing an existing U.S. business, or by forming a new company in the U.S. Company executives or directors who meet this requirement must have worked for an overseas company for at least one year within the last three years.

Companies usually apply for L-1A multinational manager visas for their employees first, and then apply for EB-1C after approval, but L-1A is not a precursor to EB-1C process In addition, approval of the L-1A does not necessarily mean that the employee is eligible for EB-1C.

*Names used are pseudonyms to protect client privacy.