IN THIS GUIDE · A production director whose authority is real on the ground and invisible on paper
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The relationship has to exist, and both companies have to be trading
An intracompany petition requires a qualifying relationship between the foreign employer and the American entity, as parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate, evidenced by share registers, purchase agreements and corporate resolutions rather than by an organigram somebody drew. It also requires that both entities be doing business, meaning the regular, systematic and continuous provision of goods or services, not merely holding an office or an asset. A plant that has been dark since closing is the weak point in Mireille’s file. If the American company will not be operating when the petition is filed, the question stops being whether she is a manager and becomes whether there is yet an employer for her to manage.
Managing people and managing a function are different claims
Managerial capacity can rest on supervising other employees, in which case the subordinates and their own duties are examined, or on managing an essential function of the organization at a senior level, in which case the function itself must be identified and its importance demonstrated. The two claims call for different evidence and should not be blended into a single vague assertion. Executive capacity is a further alternative again, resting on direction of the organization or a major component with wide latitude in discretionary decision-making. Deciding which of the three describes Mireille before anyone drafts a job description is what keeps the description honest.
What she does with her own hands is the part that decides it
In a plant of this size a director rarely delegates everything, and Mireille still writes the daily blend recipes, adjusts the moisture on the line and takes the customer call when a batch runs coarse. Those are production tasks. If the American role reproduces that pattern because there is nobody else yet to do it, the petition describes a manager and the working week describes a supervisor of machinery. The realistic fix is not better wording but a hiring plan that puts named people, budgets and start dates behind the tasks she is expected to hand off, and a Quebec record showing she already delegates the same tasks here.
If the American plant counts as a new office, the first year is a trial
Where the American entity has been doing business for less than a year the petition is treated as a new office and, if approved, is approved for one year initially. That first year is not a formality; the extension asks what actually happened, so premises, hiring, payroll and revenue during those twelve months become the evidence for continuing. There is also a ceiling: this classification permits a maximum of seven years, the specialized-knowledge classification permits five, and time already spent in the latter counts against the former. A manager who has previously spent three years in the United States on a specialized-knowledge petition begins this plan with four years available, not seven.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.