L1, L2 Visa

Can anyone share their experience who fall in the category of L1 "New Office" Visa in the US?

Comments or even direct emails will be appreciated.

gauravggupta89'at the rate'gmail.com

Questions asked:
1. How Long working for the company?
2. Total years of experience?
3. Salary in US
4. Maximum education Level.
5. Where am I going to in USA

No questions to Wife and kids.

I went to Chennai from New Delhi on 24th evening. I was nervous like all of you guys.My interview was scheduled for 0815 hrs. One should reach 45 min before the reporting time as lot of paper work is required & there are queues too.

Now regarding the interview experience. If you are assured about your specialization & enough confident to explain it to the US guy, then chances are 75% in your favour.

They have got the same set of question which you have read in other guy's experiences.

Most important thing which I observe is that you should have high experience & your salary should be in proportion to it.In my case the experience was 9 years & salary was in double digits.

Hope everyone hears the golden words of approved as I heard.

Cheers!!!

Sandeep Arora
26th May, 18:54
New Delhi

Thanks to the forum for the valuable inputs ...

VO officer asked the similar questions as many in this forum has already posted.

After initial greetings she (VO) asked about my company details(product based company) ...then my profile and specialization and experience(5+) with the current company .
to my wife she(VO) asked date of marriage
then came the golden words..your VISA is approved:)

All the best to every one who is going to apply in future...

Sesh...

Thanks to this forum. The information is very useful for preparation for Visa interview

My L1A (Individual) visa and L2 visa of my wife and kids have been approved on 21st May’12 at Chennai.

Below are the communications at Visa Office.

Me : Good morning Sir
Visa Officer (VO) : Good Morning

VO : Which visa have you applied for
Me : L1A (Individual)

VO : What is your job title in US and in India
Me : XX in US and XX in India

VO : How many people do you manage in India
Me : XX people

To my elder kid

VO : What is you name
VO : Who is that person (to me, my wife and my younger kid one by one)

Then he told that your visa is approved (he was seeing something in computer).

Then he told wait for a minute and he went inside the office and checked something from the original I797 form & I 129 form received from USCIS with one lady sitting inside the office. He came back and told your visa is approved and it will take 2 weeks.

I say Thank You to VO and left the visa office.

No question to my wife. He did not see a single document.

We went with our 16 months old kid and consulate allowed some chocolates, biscuits and small water bottle. They asked my wife and kid to drink the water.

I had appeared for L1 A Blanket in September 2011 in Delhi when I was asked to apply for individual or H1 category. Finally after going through the RFE(Request for further evidense), they approved my petition and went through the L1 B Individual interview on 21-May. I must agree that 75% is luck driven and 25% confidence.

It looked like Interview was more of formality and they have predecided the outcome. Interview summary:

1. what will you do in US; is it for client or same company
2. why was the Blaket disapproved earlier
3. when did you go to <other countries referring my PP>
4. To my elder kid - How old are you and how is your younger sister
5. To my wife, how long you are married

Thats all!

Thank you very much Immihelp for providing this forum. It definitely helped one prepare in right direction.

-Nikhil

After hearing all the stories on L1A (managerial) rejections two months back, I prepared myself well for all possible questions. But it turned out to be a pleasant experience with few simple Qs. For this visa, the VO would like to check if your really working in a managerial capacity with a sizeable team reporting to you both at onsite and offshore. Questions were as below:

Which organization am with (mine is reputed MNC)?
what is the client name?
will i be working at client location?
which place am i travelling to?
How many reportees? (I first told him to total no. of reportees including direct and indirect - about 22 associates and then the direct reportees no.)?
Finally he said the visa is approved and returned me the tow stamped petetion copies back and took my passport (this is the case with L1A)

So for L1A, just remember you have to speak and layout the facts like a manager !

I got my L1B approved at the Chennai consulate on Thursday, 24 May. The interview was extremely brief (a world of difference compared to my b1/b2 experience) and was completed in about half a minute.

The process went something like this..
VO - looks at my company ID (it's a well known brand, non software) and asks me if I would be working with the parent company
Me - Yes

VO - Experience with my current company
Me - About 4 Years

VO - Type of Petition
Me - Individual

VO - 'Your visa will be sent to you in 7 days'

My 2 cents after studying other L1 visa experiences - Your company's reputation is extremely important. An individual petition seems to warrant fewer questions from the VO; The interview becomes more of a stamping formality.

As many others have already mentioned on this forum, the material presented here is invaluable as a preparation tool for a visa interview. Keep it going :-)
Cheers

VO : Where are you going to?
ME : X, Y
VO : What do you do?
ME : I am a designated technical SME for the proprietary A,B,C modules used in company X‘s Y Management system’s A and B. I developed and deployed these modules using X and C methodologies as part of the previous release of the same project and I bring that knowledge to the table.
VO : please give the supporting petition documents.
(I handed it to him and he reads through it for some 30 seconds.)
VO : So what is project “X” and tell me about it.
Me : it is YYYY and helps company manages all XX expenses ……..we spend $X billion annually on it. Indirect spend is nothing but all the X,Y and Z. The project running cost is $Y million a month and any delay will have huge financial impact for the company . I will be the technical test lead for this……..(I continued for 1 min)

(When I was speaking , I saw him signing on the petition .After that he asked)

VO: Have you travelled to US before?
ME : yes
VO : How many times?
ME : twice
VO : For how long?
ME : 7 weeks
VO : 7 weeks is infinite , give me the exact count of days.
ME : 70+ days
Vo : What were you doing for 70 days there
ME : I was attending training and meeting . in my first visit I was in planning for this project which started in 2010. I worked with more than 1700 people to understand the new process and all and give my inputs as the technical SME…..Second time the business Process was defined and I had o take that knowledge back to the offshore team and check for its technical viability and complexity. I acted as a liaison between the onshore and offshore tea….(and I added a few more sentence)
VO : I don’t believe you…tell me the truth on what you were doing.
ME : My B1 visa was raised to help me travel to State X to attend my graduation . Unfortunately because of the Iceland volcanic eruption and ash issue , I couldn’t travel . I completed my MS from X University in 2010 and had initiated a project to decommission applications called decommission framework. In the first travel , I used some time to get the requirements ready from business team and created a framework to e used for this project . in the first visit , it was vacation season , I took some time off to meet some distant relatives also ….(added a few more sentences)
VO : You know it is illegal to work on B1 , right and we take job loss in US very seriously .
ME : I perfectly understand it and Target never allows TM’s to work on business visa.

He looks into the passport and citing the I-94 expiry date from my previous travel(Jan/2012) .

VO : It says u went to US in January 2012 .
ME : no officer. I went in July and came back in sep 2011 (I showed him the dates and took almost a min to convince him)

VO : for this time , I will grant the visa. But make sure , you don’t misuse it.
ME : thanks , have a good day .

It look almost 5 mins for the interview to complete.
I was dressed in a suit with tie as well , plus my first few answers would have impressed him . Otherwise it would have been a different climax.

Hi Forum readers,

Posting my experience ..
In March I attended the interview for L1 A Blanket,Vo officer rejected with comments ..not the valid visa,yday I attended my interview with my family:

VO officer asked me the below questions:
1)Who is your client
2)About client
3)How much of experience with current organisation
4)Salary in US
5)State in US you are going to travel
6)were you working in US for this client
7)type of visa you have applied...

Questions to my wife:
1)How old have you been married?
2)When is your husband's bday?

No questions to my kids(elder 5 yr 6 months old,youger 21 months old..)

I feel 1st one was rejected as its not the valid one as I am working as a manager from last 5 yrs.

Bagalore