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MORINVILLE · L-1A FIELD GUIDE

Can an L-1A function manager qualify without a large reporting team?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Possibly, but the evidence must establish management of an essential function rather than primarily performing its work.

Explain how the function operates

Describe the applicant’s senior responsibility, discretion and the people or resources that execute the work. A diagram without that explanation leaves the central distinction unresolved. The qualifying relationship, foreign employment and requested U.S. managerial or executive role must also be established.

Collect examples that reveal what the applicant really does: approving a departmental plan, setting priorities for a defined function, selecting senior staff, controlling a budget, or directing managers and professionals. Where several family members or holding entities are involved, have counsel assess control from the actual corporate records rather than a summary chart, since the chart is only a starting explanation. A carrier's dispatch and freight-acceptance function is plainly essential, and a manager who decides which loads are taken, negotiates owner-operator contracts, sets rates and controls the function's budget is managing it, even though the dispatchers are clerical employees and the drivers are contractors. The regulation requires the foreign entity to be doing business, meaning the regular and systematic supply of goods or services, so the petition must show what is still running rather than pass over the closure in silence.