Employer Ineligibility

• There are two major requirements for an employer to be eligible to petition to bring an employee into the United States. It must have a relationship with a foreign company and it must be doing (or about to do) business in the United States. A qualifying relationship with the foreign company can be a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate. If the petition is rejected because of a lack of proof of a qualifying relationship, the company can resubmit proof in an appeal or a new petition. If the petition was denied due to lack of evidence that the company is carrying on business in the United States, a new petition that includes that proof might allow for the transfer.
  
  

Applicant Ineligibility

• The L1-A visa is only for positions that require executive or management skills.Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
  
  The government can also deny an application because the individual is ineligible for sponsorship on a form I-129. The transferee must have been working for the foreign affiliate (parent, subsidiary, branch or affiliate) for one continuous year in the three years preceding the petition and must be seeking to come into the United States to render "executive" or "management" services. The requirements are interpreted to mean that the employee must be coming to fill a position that carries with it high responsibility and the ability to direct other workers or manage a unit of the company. If the denial was based on not meeting the one-year requirement, the company can repetition once the employee has worked for one year. If the denial is based on a lack of executive or managerial work, the position needs to be rewritten with appropriate oversight duties, or the company can consider petitioning for an L-1B visa for a worker with specialized knowledge.
  
  

Inadmissibility

• The applicant must still meet all requirements for admissibility.Digital Vision/Digital Vision/Getty Images
  
  If USCIS accepts the company's petition, the State Department can still reject the individual applicant as inadmissible. Whether the applicant can correct those grounds for inadmissibility will depend on exactly what findings the State Department made. Section 212(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act contains an extensive list of factors what will make a person inadmissible, including disease, criminal history and membership in certain groups. Some grounds for inadmissibility, such as not having documentation of certain vaccinations, can be quickly fixed in time for an appeal or a new application. Other grounds, such as prior convictions for certain drug-trafficking crimes, might be harder to overcome.
  
  

Appeals of Denial

• The proper route to appeal a denial of a petition or a denial of a visa will depend on the grounds. If the denial is by USCIS, the notice of denial (I-292) will contain instructions on how to appeal the decision and where to address the appeal. The general rule is that appeals must be filed within 30 days of the denial, so time is of the essence. If the denial of the visa was due to a factual finding by a consular officer abroad, the only reliable way to appeal that denial is to present new evidence to the consular officer in an effort to change his mind. The ability for agencies in the United States to overrule facts found by consular officials is very limited.