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L-1A Extension Approval Within 15 Days for 7-Employee Company

L-1A Extension Approval Within 15 Days for 7-Employee Company

  • Applicant: Ms. Li
  • Nationality: Chinese
  • Case type: L-1A Extension
  • Industry: Auto Parts
  • Position: President
  • Employees: 7
  • Approval Time: Within 11 business days
  • Challenges:
    • Ms. Li had only 7 employees by the time she was filing her extension petition
    • Ms. Li had urgent matters and required expedited processing to receive an approval in approximately 2 weeks.
    • Ms. Li spent most of her time under her initial L-1A status preparing for operations, so the business development was slow.
    • Ms. Li contacted many law firms and found that they use templates for L-1A petitions. She required custom-made application packages, which is Tsang & Associates’ specialty.
    • Under her initial L-1A status, Ms. Li frequently traveled outside of America to manage other businesses. Ms. Li had a lack of time spent managing the U.S. company.
    • Many of Ms. Li’s company’s documents are damaged or lost.

 

BACKGROUND

Ms. Li, a prominent executive of a fast-growing auto parts company, traveled to the U.S. with an L-1A (Intracompany Transferee Executive or Manager) visa to establish the U.S. subsidiary of her Chinese business. Although the U.S. branch was eventually becoming successful, its rising success was preceded by months of difficulty in operations: securing employees and promising distributors was proving to be a challenge for Ms. Li, and as such there was not much by way of documented evidence that the company was gaining traction. Regardless, the duration of her initial one-year L-1A visa was coming to an end, and she still had plenty of work left to accomplish in the U.S.; leaving the U.S. before bringing stabilized success would mean that Ms. Li’s extremely diligent efforts here would go to waste. Thus, she was tasked with proving to USCIS that she was the indispensable executive of this company—and that her efforts were contributing to a promisingly lucrative business. Considering the still-nebulous structure of her operations and the lack of direct documentation with regards to profits and projections, she decided that she would need help preparing an L-1A Extension petition that would be approved as quickly as possible. For that, she took her case to us at Tsang & Associates.

 

KEYS TO SUCCESS

Knowing that Ms. Li’s remaining time in the U.S. was dwindling, we jumped right into reflecting her L-1A extension as strong as we could. First, our Attorney Joseph personally assisted her with negotiating and finalizing the prices and contract agreements with her new distributor, as to unequivocally show their working relationship with one another. The fact that Ms. Li could now show the solid business connections she was making meant that she had evidence supporting the substantial growth of the company through her own efforts.

Building upon this, we proceeded to assert Ms. Li’s position as the true executive of the company by breaking down and examining the structure of her operations as a whole. We accounted for both the U.S. and the Chinese branches, meticulously relaying the specific functions of every employee Ms. Li had hired and establishing the comprehensive framework of the business from the ground up. After we had compiled as much information about every facet of the company as we could, we demonstrated the chain of command through flowcharts and easily-comprehensible graphics, emphasizing the fact that Ms. Li’s overarching responsibilities place her firmly at the top. Moreover, we further proved Ms. Li’s ambitious potential as an executive in the U.S. by highlighting her professional achievements/accomplishments and recent successes for the consideration of USCIS; in essence, our argumentations show that not only is Ms. Li the sole executive of this thriving U.S. operation, but that she is primarily responsible for its growth, as well as the only one capable of executing her plan to grow it further.

Most other law offices’ L-1A Extension petitions provide approximately 10 pages of attorney supporting letter and the client’s supporting documentations sufficient to meet L-1A standards. This type of filings will create a high chance of receiving an RFE (Request for Evidence) from USCIS, where these law offices charge again for RFE response fees.

Considering Tsang & Associates’ unwavering commitment and attention to detail, however, Ms. Li’s application ended up being over 40 pages of attorney support letter with specific data supporting her visa eligibility as a non-immigrant executive, minimizing the chance of receiving an RFE. Right from the beginning, Tsang & Associates custom-makes extensive L-1A checklists to minimize chances of receiving an RFE and maximize approval rate.

 

OUTCOME

L-1A petitions (especially from businesses with slow growth and fewer number of employees) normally receive an RFE in response. Due to our thoroughness, however, Ms. Li’s L-1A Extension was simply approved 15 days after we submitted the application. Ms. Li was extremely grateful to us for guiding her through this complicated process, allowing her to quickly resume tending to her U.S. operations.