Our immigration practice group recently received approvals for one of our EB-1C clients. This particular individual is in the shipping industry and is a top technical manager, who originally came from Spain to the U.S. using the L-1A visa.
Some of you may know that an L-1A can only be extended up to a maximum of 7 years in total. If the employer wishes to continue employing the foreign national beyond 7 years, the employer must petition the foreign national for an immigrant visa and green card and should start that process at least 1 year before the expiration of the L-1A.
Our client started the foreign employee’s EB-1 green card application at the end of his 6th year of the L-1 visa. Due to USCIS' long adjudication time period of the EB-1C application, we had to file multiple I-765 Applications for Employment Authorization for the employee and his spouse based on the pending EB-1C and I-485 green card application.
We did receive an RFE from USCIS on the EB-1C application, mainly requesting our client to submit documents from 7 years ago to prove that the employee was employed abroad in a primarily managerial or executive capacity for at least one year in the relevant three-year period. We carefully prepared the RFE response with all the documents provided by the client and eloquently argued the reasons why some of the documents requested by the USCIS are not available. The case was finally approved only two months after the RFE response was filed with USCIS.
Key takeaways from this case:
Executives and managers can use the L-1A visa and EB-1C green card category to start a new life at their company in the US
Keep your work records organized and digitize your files whenever you can.
Start the process early to allow for flexibility.
If you have any questions about your immigration applications or are interested in filing a green card application, please feel free to click here and reach out to us.
