I-140 Approved Despite Sponsor Company Income Shortage

• Mr. Chi’s sponsoring company fell short of its income goals, triggering an examination of Mr. Chi’s green card application.
• Mr. Chi’s employer has had difficulty raising revenue over the years.
• Mr. Chi took long periods off during his residency period, damaging the credibility of his application.

BACKGROUND

An applicant submits the EB2 form when they are expecting to be sponsored by a company based in the United States. Part of the process involves proving that no one other than the applicant can do the job the sponsoring company needs to be done. The sponsor company must also prove that it can afford to employ the applicant.

In this case, our client, Mr. Chi, was being sponsored by a small logistics company that had difficulty raising revenue in the past. In 2016, the company’s total revenue was 7.3 million dollars. They fell short of their projected revenue by six thousand dollars, which triggered a Request for Evidence by the USCIS. Mr. Chi’s green card application was now in jeopardy.

If his application had been denied, he would have had to leave the United States and reapply, a process which would have added a year to his application time.

At the time there was some acrimony between Mr. Chi and the management of his sponsoring company – each side blamed each other for the situation they were in. The company had long standing difficulties raising revenue, and Mr. Chi had taken a lot of time off during the period he worked there. The question the USCIS wanted an answer to was: Does the sponsoring company make enough money to pay Mr. Chi the salary they initially claimed they could pay him? Mr. Chi was overwhelmed with the situation as this is not an easy task to prove. Confused about where to start, Mr. Chi needed an attorney that was experienced enough to help him in this situation, which is when he found Tsang & Associates.

KEYS TO SUCCESS

The government usually only asks for tax returns in this sort of case. Another firm dealing with this case might have been satisfied with submitting a tax return and leaving the matter to the adjudicator to decide. We like to say, “Justice isn’t blind. It’s overworked.” We cannot trust the government to spend the time and attention required to reach the conclusions we had come to. It was our responsibility to curate a set of evidence that made the strength of our argument clear. We needed to show that this small company could afford to pay Mr. Chi a salary of eighty-thousand dollars per year. We had already spent a year doing pre-work for this application, so we were prepared to present the prospects of the sponsor company in the best light possible.

We argued that the logistics company was a large and thriving business that could easily afford to pay the eighty-thousand dollar salary. We treated the case as though it was an audit, and combed through the company’s financial records going back several years. We highlighted the revenue the company had brought in over the years, rather than focusing solely on profits. We looked at the company’s earnings statements and submitted those that we felt best illustrated the company’s earning and growth potential. Instead of merely giving the USCIS the specific records it had asked for, we chose to submit a range of documents.

We were honest, yet selective in our approach, choosing data that best supported the argument that we were making – that our client was being sponsored by a strong and stable company.

Being judged by others is not a pleasant experience, but it is a fact of life. Presenting your argument with good facts allows you to define the process by which you will be judged.

OUTCOME

We were thorough in our research and proactive in the presentation of Mr. Chi’s case. We brought the case to a successful resolution within a month. Mr. Chi was able to continue with his dream of working in America all thanks to Tsang & Associates thorough work.