Evidence of each departure and return: I-94 travel history, passport entry stamps, boarding passes, and a day-by-day log, presented as a calculation in the extension petition; the roastery’s calendar and expense records corroborate the trips.
Prove the days abroad one trip at a time
Recapture is available for periods spent outside the United States during L-1A status, but USCIS grants it only on evidence. The petition should include a table listing every trip with departure and return dates, the number of full days abroad and the total, and it should attach the documents that prove each line: the official I-94 travel-history printout, passport stamps where Canadian and U.S. entries are recorded, airline or bus tickets, and, for drives across the land border, the roastery’s expense reports, credit-card statements or meeting calendars that place her in La Pêche on those dates.
Partial days are not counted, so the log should be conservative. The same extension petition needs the ordinary evidence: the subsidiary’s and the parent’s financial statements, payroll records, an organizational chart with her subordinates, and a position description showing managerial duties. If the earlier H-1B period is in issue, records of her departure and her Canadian residence for the following year show the reset.
Start with the cap date calculated without recapture, then test each absence against primary travel evidence; a calendar alone does not establish time abroad. The first review should yield a reconciled trip log and a conservative recapture total, with unexplained gaps excluded rather than estimated. For the managerial extension, the organizational chart must show who performs the operational work and what authority she exercises over them; a title cannot settle that question.
Hypothetical example: a packaging-plant operations manager claims forty-eight days abroad, but the I-94 history and receipts support only forty-one full days. The petition should claim forty-one, preserve the underlying records, and schedule the filing without relying on the disputed week.