L-1 Intracompany Transferee Status

Certain employs of foreign based employers are eligible to be transferred to a qualifying U.S. corporation in L-1 status in order to continue their employment with the same employer in the United Statesas a manager, executives, or as an employee with specialized knowledge of the corporation.

The following conditions must be met for a foreign employee to be eligible for L-1 Intracompany Status:

• The United States corporation is the same firm, corporation, or other legal entity, or parent, branch, affiliate or subsidiary thereof, for whom the beneficiary has been employed abroad;

• The employee to be transferred is going to be employed in the United States as a manager, an executive, or in a position requiring specialized knowledge of the corporation;

• The employee has been employed by the foreign corporation for one continuous year within the previous three years prior to be being transferred to the United States;

• A requisite employer-employee relationship exists, and will continue to exist after the employee is transferred to the United States;

• Both the foreign corporation and the United States corporation will continue to do business during the period that the employee is transferred to the United States; and

• The employee is not subject to the limitation on readmission for former L and H aliens, or the two-year foreign residence requirement for former exchange visitors, or is not otherwise inadmissible to the United States.

Citizens of Canada may apply for admission to the United States in L-1 Intracompany Transferee status directly at a port of entry, circumventing the need to submit a petition to one of the four INS service centers which inevitably results in lengthy delays.

Kolken & Kolken has been consistently successful in obtaining same-day adjudication of L-1 petitions for citizens of Canada from our location in Buffalo, New York.