FAQs for L-1 Visa Holders and their Families by Peng & Weber

Applying to enter the US even on a temporary basis is a complicated and frequently frustrating undertaking. An immigration law professional can help you find a way to come to the US legally. Upon the approval of your I-140 petition, your priority date will become current, and you will be eligible to submit an I-485 form in order to adjust your status from nonimmigrant L1 status, to lawful permanent residency under a green card. In the event that your employer fires you, youimmediately will go out of status. There is no grace period and you will need to quickly find a job from an employer who is willing to sponsor an H1B visa.
Another requirement is that the foreign national must have been employed with the organization outside of the U.S. for at least one continuous year in the preceding three years at a qualifying foreign entity. The last step in the process is to attend your L1 interview at your local embassy. Once this takes place, your application will be processed and you will be notified of the outcome in due course. The process generally takes 3-4 months for individual petitions and can be sped up using premium processing options. A foreign national who has been employed continuously forat least1 year by a related foreign entity may qualify for L status. The foreign national must generally be coming to the U.S. to perform work similar to that performed for the related foreign entity.
It also means working with an immigration lawyer to be sure that no suspicions will be raised to prevent both an L1 extension denial and a Request for Evidence . This is another one of the more common reasons of denial that we find with our clients. Three years is a long time in the world of business or technology. In that time, it is entirely possible that your position may change during your stay under L1 status. However, depending on the nature of the new position, it may result in an L1 extension denial. Perhaps the highest denial rate is carried byL-1B visa applications.
It allows employers to transfer highly valued employees from a position abroad to a position in the United States. It’s a good idea to spend plenty of time training your employees to provide them with the specialized knowledge that they need before applying for an L-1 visa so they have the strongest application possible. The L1 visa allows you to enter the US to work on starting a new office or branch where none exists for your parent company if you are in a managerial position.
In that case, you fall in the category of eligibility for an EB-2 visa. This employment-based green card application is for skilled workers or employees with advanced degrees. Your U.S. employer would have to sponsor your visa and obtain a PERM labor certification through the U.S.
In order to be eligible for an H-1B visa, the applicant needs to have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent and deep or special knowledge in the field. Along with this, the employer is also required to demonstrate that the position could not be filled by domestic workers. The L1 Visa , as the name suggests, is a type of visa issued to workers transferring to the US branch of a company. The company in the US could be a subsidiary of an overseas company, or it could be the parent office/branch.
The entire processing times from an L1A visa to receiving a green card ranges from 3-6 years. The foreign company and the sponsoring company in the U.S. must maintain qualifying relationship and business operations until the grant of green card. An L1 visa is a nonimmigrant working visa in the United States. However, an individual who obtains an L1A visa may be qualified for EB-1C green card. EB-1C is an immigrant visa classification for multinational managers and executives. Although it is not mandatory to obtain an L1A visa before filing an EB-1C immigrant petition, it is preferably to do so.
Secondly, difference between l1a and l1b differs from other work visas in the strict limitation to the maximum period of stay. For example, the L1-A visa allows holders to work up to seven years, but you cannot exceed this for any reason. This contrasts from visas such as the H-1B or J-1 which allows extensions past the maximum. Some visas even allow unlimited extensions such as the O-1 and E2 visas — however, L1 visa holders must deal with the limit that they are only granted one extension after their first three years of stay.
The L-1B visa allows a U.S. employer to transfer an employee with specialized knowledge relating to the organization from one of its affiliated foreign offices to a U.S. parent company, subsidiary, affiliate or branch. A qualifying relationship must exist between the company sponsoring the L-1 employee and a foreign company. A company can qualify as an L-1 sponsor if it is a parent company, subsidiary, branch or affiliate.