Managerial and executive capacity is the single biggest fight in EB-1C appeals — here's what the AAO actually wants to see.
Dismissed · 2016 Cost Plus Agreement with foreign affiliate, along with invoices and wire transfer payments, were conceptually accepted as a valid theory of 'doing business' under Matter of Leacheng, but were insufficient alone without corroborating operational evidence
Dismissed · 2022 Letters from presidents of five other wholesale jewelry businesses explaining that customs invoices bear the owner's name due to personal liability for shipping duties, rebutting the prior finding that the Beneficiary personally processed customs bills.
Sustained · 2017 Arrival and departure records showing the Beneficiary made only 17 brief trips to the United States between February 2011 and August 2013, with the longest visit lasting 12 days and a total of only 117 days in the U.S. over approximately 2.5 years.
Dismissed · 2021 Petitioner's 2017 corporate tax return showing salaries/wages of $64,506, net income of $32,043, and net current assets of $5,314 — accepted as the operative financial document but found insufficient to meet the proffered wage requirement
Dismissed · 2025 Amended 2022 income tax return establishing the sole member of the LLC, accepted as sufficient to establish a qualifying corporate relationship by a preponderance of the evidence alongside the company agreement and other tax returns.
Remanded · 2016 2013 corporate tax return, unaudited balance sheets, unaudited income statements, state quarterly wage reports, and bank statements were insufficient to establish ability to pay — they do not meet the regulatory requirement of annual reports, federal tax returns, or audited financial statements for the relevant filing period
Dismissed · 2020 Petitioner's claim that late filing of the motion to reconsider was beyond its control due to not receiving the denial notice — the regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 103.5(a)(1)(i) does not provide discretionary relief for untimely motions to reconsider (only motions to reopen), and the denial was mailed to the address of record.
Remanded · 2015 Translation of the parent company's Operating Report and Account Closing 2013, which contained an untranslated Finnish heading in the right-hand column and a discrepancy where '100.00' appeared in translation but only a dash appeared in the original, rendering the translation incomplete and potentially inaccurate
Remanded · 2025 Two organizational charts depicting the Beneficiary as production manager and project manager on the 'Pavillion Project Team' — the AAO found these pertained to the continuous improvement manager role, not the regional manufacturing strategy manager role, and were therefore not relevant to the qualifying period.
Remanded · 2017 The lengthy description of the Beneficiary's proposed duties was found insufficiently detailed to establish primarily executive functions — activities like penetrating new markets, securing clients, and refining sales strategy were viewed as operational sales/marketing tasks rather than directing management.
The Director applied the incorrect definition of 'affiliates' under 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(2)(C), failing to account for the special accounting-firm affiliate definition covering firms providing accounting and consulting services under the same internationally recognized name under a worldwide coordinating organization owned and controlled by member firms.
The AAO partially reversed the Director by finding, on appeal, sufficient evidence that the Beneficiary worked in an executive capacity abroad, that the Petitioner had been doing business for one year prior to filing, and that the Petitioner had the ability to pay the proffered wage — issues the Director had decided against the Petitioner.
The Director's finding of willful misrepresentation of material facts was not supported — the identified document deficiencies did not rise to the level of willful and material misrepresentation, and the Director's own finding that the documents were not relevant meant they could not be material for misrepresentation purposes.
The Director exceeded the scope of the AAO's prior remand order by raising new issues (U.S. executive capacity and foreign executive capacity) beyond the single limited issue that was remanded (whether the Beneficiary was employed abroad by the foreign employer for at least one year in the three years preceding U.S. entry).
The Director incorrectly applied 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(A) (qualifying period measured from petition filing) instead of 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j)(3)(i)(B) (qualifying period measured from U.S. entry as a nonimmigrant) because the beneficiary was already working for the petitioner in the United States at time of filing.
The AAO dismissed a freight forwarding company's EB-1C petition because the company failed to respond adequately to a Re
A South African food export company's EB-1C petition for its beneficiary as an international expansion coordinator was d
An EB-1C petition for a dairy company's sales manager was dismissed because the petitioner could not prove that the U.S.
A pizzeria's EB-1C petition for its executive manager was denied due to failure to establish a qualifying multinational
The AAO dismissed an EB-1C multinational manager petition for a plumbing contractor's vice president, finding failures o
AAO dismissed an EB-1C petition for a newspaper publisher's Pre Press Manager after finding multiple inconsistent job de
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