Included within the Obama administration's Executive Actions
on Immigration announced in November, 2014 was a directive to the
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from DHS
Secretary Johnson to issue a long-awaited L-1B policy memorandum
that provided clear, consolidated guidance on the meaning of
"specialized knowledge." That memo has now been issued,
and is implemented through an update to the immigration
service's Adjudicator's Field Manual.
The L-1B nonimmigrant visa category for "specialized
knowledge" intracompany transferee employees has been much
maligned in the press and in Congress over the past several years,
and has faced overly stringent adjudicatory review by U.S.
immigration officers with Requests for Evidence running at 50% and
denials of close to 30%. This has mainly been due to lack of clear
statutory or regulatory guidance as to what is considered
"specialized knowledge" in the L-1B context. Immigration
adjudicators and petitioners
