Setting Up An Affiliate Company In The U.S.

First, Start Business In America helped T-India establish an affiliate company in the U.S., Technology-USA (T-US). Our attorneys made sure that the T-US's ownership was structured in a manner that would facilitate future transfers of qualified employees from T-India to T-US on an L-1 intra-company transferee visa. Start Business In America then helped T-US identify suitable office premises and carry out other preliminary steps necessary to get T-US up and running.

Enabling T-India's CEO To Come To U.S. To Manage T-US

With the successful incorporation of the affiliate company in the U.S. the next task was to transfer T-India's founder and CEO to the U.S. as the new CEO in order to establish operations there. Our attorneys helped T-US successfully prepare and submit a comprehensive petition seeking a New Office L-1 visa for T-India's CEO which would enable him to come to the U,S. for one year to set-up operations.

Challenges While Seeking Extension of Stay on A New Office L-1

The New Office L-1 is generally granted for an initial period of one year in order to enable the foreign national Executive or Manager to come to the U.S. and establish operations. To seek an extension of stay beyond the first year while on the New Office L-1, the Executive or Manager must show that during the first year the operations of the U,S. the entity had grown sufficiently to a level that justified the continued presence of the foreign national Executive or Manager, to discharge Executive or Managerial functions in the U,S.

One Year Is Not 12 Months!

While theoretically the New Office L-1 provides a foreign national Executive or Manager one year to come to the U.S, as a practical matter, an Executive or Manager may find that the time actually available to him to accomplish all that required is considerably less than one year. This is due to many factors. Once the petition is approved, the Executive must obtain an L-1 visa at an American Consulate or Embassy to be able to travel to the U.S. and seek admission on the L-1 visa. The Executive or Manager must then travel to the U.S. and start building the operations. Then, in order to remain in the U.S. to continue to build the business, the necessary extension petition must be filed at least a few months before the period of one year granted comes to an end. All this and more mean that the Executive or Manager has considerably less than one year to accomplish the task of growing operations to a level that justifies his continued presence and enable him or her continue to remain in the U.S. to manage U.S. operations.

To facilitate an extension of stay of T-US's CEO on the New Office L-1 beyond the initial period of one year, our experienced attorney helped T-US successfully prepare and file a comprehensive extension petition on his behalf, articulating how T-US's operations have become active and have reached a stage that justified his continued presence in the U.S. to manage and guide the U.S. operations.

Denial of The L-1 Visa By The U.S. Consulate For T-US's CEO And USCIS's Issuance of A Notice of Intent To Revoke

After the approval of the extension petition that facilitated T-US's CEO to continue working in the US, he planned a brief trip to India. As the initial New Office L-1 visa granted to him had expired, he needed to apply for a new visa supported by the extension petition approved by the USCIS to enable him travel back to the U.S. and resume work in the U.S.

A visa interview at the consulate may not often go as planned, notwithstanding a prior USCIS approved petition supporting the applicant's case. Sometimes the U.S. Consulate may deny the application because they do not feel the petition should have been approved. Sometimes, due to an applicant's natural anxiety and stress that such interviews can create, the applicant may be unable to clearly articulate his or her qualifications for the visa type applied for. Something similar happened in this case. During the visa interview, the Consular Officer decided that the applicant (T-US's CEO) would not actually be functioning in an Executive capacity in the U.S. and refused to issue him a visa.

After refusing to issue an L-1 visa to T-US's CEO, the Consulate returned the petition to USCIS for review and revocation. Based on the Consular official's reference, USCIS issued T-US a "Notice of Intent to Revoke" (NOIR) citing the consular officer's concerns and requesting additional evidence from T-US to demonstrate that the beneficiary indeed qualified for a position that was Executive in character.

The end result of all these developments meant that T-US's CEO was stranded in India after what was supposed to be a brief trip and unable to return to the U.S. to effectively manage the U.S. operations.

Successful Response Strategy And Overcoming A Consular Visa Denial

When T-US received USCIS's NOIR, our attorney thoroughly reviewed the situation. After considering all the materials on hand, our experienced attorneys recommended that re-fling the L-1 petition would be more advantageous over responding to the NOIR.

Our attorneys worked closely with T-US to help thoroughly document how the beneficiary's role was executive in nature, and to prepare and file a new petition seeking T-India's CEO's presence in the U.S. Keeping in mind the previous objections raised by USCIS in the NOIR, the package addressed every concern or query that the authorities had raised and traversed beyond the normal parameters to effectively establish how the CEO's role in the U.S. could not be anything else but Executive in nature. The extensive package submitted by our attorneys resulted in the approval of the L-1 petition for notwithstanding the earlier revocation.

The extensive package that was prepared in thorough anticipation of, and addressing, the questions that may come up at the Consulate during the visa interview for the beneficiary also ensured that the beneficiary did not have any issues at the Consulate at the time of applying for a new visa, enabling him to come to the U.S. and resume functioning as the CEO of T-US.